Regret, Desire, Hope: The Triangle Chronicles
by Sikla Alkis
Summary: The world is dead. The world is cold. The world's heartbeat is broken after the End, devastated by weapons unspeakable. But in Rapture, can one young woman find some semblance of life upon an Earth so desolate and broken? /Old/Classic World of Darkness/
1. Prelude

The snow always fell in whispering flakes, swinging down like drunken ladies, landing and piling everywhere it could. Winter's beautiful kiss dusted twisted metal and jagged skylines, broken concrete and those that lay in rotting death. The streets, lined with bodies of what once were, what once was, lay silent and ignorant of the world. Somewhere beyond a veil unseen, their owners whispered like the snow, sad and lonely, lost and cold. Day and evening blended into something unrecognizable, a long-stretching twilight that satisfied both nocturne and diurnal. Whatever twitched, their movement echoed; there was no silence but the odd blow of breeze, and somewhere far off, the whistle of a long, straining train.

It was a surprise that the area's tracks still worked.

With the wind came footsteps, two sets — four-legged and two. They padded, slowly, against beaten sidewalks, avoiding crumpled heaps that were better left unexplained and undisturbed. Not all of the bodies that littered the ground were obvious, and stepping into the frozen ribcage of some lost soul was unwanted. The barren bones reminded the two walkers of their own, with ribs that pressed against scarred, frostbitten skin, the great beast of hunger gnawing at their guts. There was no remorse for the actual person, not anymore; the dead were the dead. They were numerous, they were unpleasant, but the dead were the dead.

The one on two legs shifted the gear on her back. All of her belongings were in one backpack, growing heavier under a malnourished frame. In one hand, there was a Bowie knife — visible to all whenever possible — and by her side, a dog. A black-and-white dog of Irish markings, he was some sort of husky crossbreed she had found tied up and dying in a long-abandoned kennel. He was the only one that breathed, whimpering in the cold, the four bodies of his kennelmates lying beneath their coffins of thin snow. That had been when she had first set off on her own, after her family had been lost to the winter.

She looked down to the dog, now called Dragon. He had earned that name savagely, teeth flashing, jaws snapping, and despite being punched and kicked repeatedly by whatever foe came at him. All throats were Dragon's to tear if needed, but he always plodded back to his shaken mistress; he would be there, tail wagging, eyes comforting. He washed her tears with a bloody tongue; "Don't be scared," was what the crossbreed told with a few, simple licks. "I'm here. The dog's here."

The dog was there, and so was she, even if the world seemed lost and dead. Everything was covered in a grey haze; it had been in such a state that for some time. Nobody had expected the world to set itself on fire, bombarded with weapons of such massive awe and power, the world sickened and dead from its people's own hate and greed. Now, what once could be called Eden was Purgatory, for her and the rest of her selfish, sadistic race, with no place to grow food and no clean water to drink. It was why many had sought the embrace of death.

She was stronger than that. She had continued on, even after the loss of her father in the old wars, the death of her mother by sickness brought in its wake. Her brother, her last protector, had taken her little sister on a desperate attempt across the sea, towards stories of warmer climates and some semblance of bounty. She had stayed behind, perhaps foolishly, out of nostalgia and love for a country that no longer had a pulse. He had begged her to think otherwise, called her foolish for it; she rebuked his words, called _him _foolish. Within both, sadness and tinges of regret lingered for such comments.

Once, her name would have been called Louise Hamilton. Daughter of an officer in a military long disbanded and dead, and of a housewife typical in every sense of the word, she was now but a wandering figure upon the lost world. Somewhere, anywhere she was going, searching for that speck of green on whatever was left of her precious blue dot. They had called her "Lou" for short, and she remembered that name being spoken during happy, if tense, times — birthday parties and summer vacations, graduations and achievements she had worked so hard for.

That name did not belong anymore. After leaving her remaining family, after travelling for so long with only Dragon as a companion, she had found another name: Luna. It was a name for the moon, which managed to shine through some nights, silver and mysterious in the faraway sky. Some said that the moon induced a craziness, lunacy, in certain people; considering her odd, overtly exuberant nature, which sometimes poked through holes in a stoic face adopted, she felt it was fitting. It was like her name of old, yet carried newness, a purpose to it, and so long as she chose the life she chose, it would be her identifier.

Luna Hamilton, formerly Louise Hamilton, lifted her head to listen to the long cry of the train again. It didn't sound far.

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><p><em>End Prelude<em>

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><p><em>The World of Darkness<em>_ copyright White Wolf Publishing_

_Luna Hamilton, Dragon and other OC characters copyright me_


	2. Chapter One: Encounters

Its great fangs crashed together in a mess of meat and spit, claws like scythes raking through flesh like butter. A humanoid abomination of beast and man, it snarled and growled as it tore into the half-frozen carcass of the doe, thin in death. Dragon backed away uneasily from her side, and he whimpered; she threw him a look, angered yet scared, and dared not move. The monster continued to chomp away; the man-wolf must have been too hungry to focus on outside stimuli.

She clutched her Bowie knife with white knuckles, raising it and holding it against her chest. She hesitated, wondering if she could somehow go around, but the passage was the only open area for miles. Everywhere she and Dragon had tried to go, there were debris, debris and more debris — broken glass, ragged concrete, all possibly hiding worse, such as spots of toxic waste. The city was unstable, building after building continuously collapsing, deadly avalanches pouring into the streets to block them. It was a maze trying to get out, and that small clearing, with the alley that led to beyond, was her best shot. She had seen so from a rooftop before running like mad to get down.

As the creature continued to gnash its meaty teeth, Luna's bladder muscles squeezed tight — an old trick to help soften footsteps. Slowly putting one foot over the other, heel gently pressing down, her boot's print slowly laid itself onto the ground. One breath, taken, held, and then breathed out again followed, and she looked at the canine monster, waiting to see if he'd turn his horrid head to her. (He did not.) Repeating the process with her other foot, taking one eventual step after the other, Dragon hesitantly followed when she motioned with her hand. He was such a good dog.

Making her way out from behind the pillar she used as cover, Luna got a better look at the wolf. She could see every rib, count them if she had the desire to, and his fur dropped in mangy tufts. (Luna was assuming it was a "he" by how sharp and angular the creature seemed, lacking any sort of feminine curve, especially around the chest and hips.) His skin was dark, frostbitten in places, and his ears had been torn in some sort of fight; scars that raked him seemed to confirm this. Luna thought she might also see some odd bruising on the exposed skin, but she couldn't be sure. Dragon's ears were flat against his head as he stepped out into the open, and he looked at the creature fearfully, tail tucked beneath his legs. Luna had to reach over and seize the dog's collar to keep him from freezing in his tracks.

Luna wasn't sure why she didn't cower in fear or automatically bolt upon sight of the man-wolves. (She loathed to call them "werewolves"; "man-wolf" was far easier an identifier in her brain.) Most others she had seen cried and screamed, begging for mercy or fleeing, some curiously wondering what they were seeing before being torn apart. A few went some sort of killer rage as they ranted over and over again, berating what they were seeing and charging ahead blindly. Luna felt sorry for them, as there was no way they could get away safely if they didn't snap out of their reactions fast enough. Even animals felt the same as most humans, and Dragon was a perfect example; if Luna hadn't been there, he probably would have turned tail and headed for somewhere else. The closer they came to where the man-wolf feasted the more Dragon ground his paws in, and Luna was tugging as quietly as she could. His nails would make too much noise if she had to pull him across to safety!

She was now almost directly in line of her adversary, and Dragon let out another whine. Luna grabbed his jaws and clamped them shut, slipping a little; the man-wolf perked his head. All froze, Luna's heart beating wild like bird's wings. The man-wolf looked left and right, but not to his behind, and buried his muzzle into the flesh of the deer again. Luna held her ground, knuckles white as she tightly gripped her crossbreed's collar, then tried to move again. He budged a mere centimetre before freezing in place.

Seeing no other option, Luna glanced at the man-wolf, then at her poor, terrified dog. Slowly leaning down, with some effort, she wrapped her arms behind Dragon's shoulders and before his hips. A bony frame jutted into her arms, even with the thick coat, and Dragon was pathetically light. Yet, he still was heavy enough to burden her, and she struggled and tried not to grunt. The sound of pressure — boot heels crunching and sliding in snow — ended up betraying her instead. The man-wolf's head lifted again, but that time, he _did _look back.

Luna froze but like a deer under cover. Yellow eyes bore into her amber-brown, and a low snarl of warning was directed at her. From sitting to baring teeth on all fours the wolf went, hackles raised, tail raised, ripped ears raised high. Luna clutched her dog protectively, holding out her hands in surrender as best she could. Swallowing, trying not to break eye contact or look scared. Her breath hitched in her throat as the man-wolf stalked forward, snarling further, teeth glistening.

"I'm not here to take your food," Luna said ponderously, evenly, caution hanging on every word. "We're leaving this place. We mean no harm."

The sound the man-wolf made was almost indignant, and it plodded closer, swinging back and forth its mighty jaws. Luna took one step away, closer towards her route to freedom. "Please let me leave," she said, same tone as before, "we've got nothing you want." The man-wolf responded by giving a snap and a growl, bellowing out something similar to a roar; Dragon yelped and threw himself from Luna's arms, almost slipping upon impact. He made for the alleyway, the man-wolf charging at Luna; she screamed, turned and ran, trying to outrun the monster. Dragon flew across the ground and away from the scene and a feeling of slow-motion for Luna as he left her behind. The man-wolf bore down on her, his wide strides catching up with her, and she could hear the air tear itself from his throat and nose as his jaws descended upon her. Out of reflex, she swung around, desperately trying to plunge her Bowie knife into its muzzle as it tried to pin her.

It worked, but only for a few seconds as the monster snapped its maw and shook its head, blood dripping from its nose for only a few seconds. Luna tried to bolt, but the creature grabbed her viciously, slamming her into the ground as his paw pressed into her diaphragm. The wind escaped her, and hot saliva dribbled onto her face, the cold-blooded look of _murder _the beast gave chilling her. She felt only terror, unable to speak, giving out a strangled squeak. The monster leaned down, teeth shining.

"_Food…_._"_

It spoke. Luna was so shocked, she couldn't remember her fear — that, or her fear was compounded by it. "N-no…!" she managed to gasp after a few moments. "Not…food!"

"_Food,"_ the monster insisted, pressing his paw into her stomach even more. She couldn't breathe. _**"FOOD!"**_

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><p>Dragon didn't look back. He ran on pure adrenaline and instinct, kicking up white and grey behind him. He bolted between two buildings, running as fast as his paws would allow, the long buildings on either side opening to a wide field. Nearby, there were scraps of buildings, twisted metal and stone that rose to the sky; the wind, lonely and cold, echoed over them in remorse. He ran about the same distance the alleyway had been in length, but then stopped, panting. He thought he had heard his mistress cry out.<p>

"_**FOOD!**_" boomed a bestial voice. "_**FOOD!**_" it said again, and there was the sound of struggling. A young woman's voice pleaded, and then, jaws bit into flesh. Luna's piercing scream rose and swept over him like the oncoming wind; Dragon's eyes went wide with fright. He took off, running back towards the alley and down it again.

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><p>Luna was at the point of tears. The pain was awful, and it felt like the arm's bone was creaking under the weight of so much pressure. Warm blood splattered onto her face and clothes, and the man-wolf wrenched left and right. It was like he was trying to tear off her limb as she still breathed and lived.<p>

At that moment, Luna knew she was going to die. If she hadn't been so terrified, she would have made peace with herself. But, she failed to recognize the footsteps of something quadruped — not until she heard a growl, snarl and a bark, and it snapped her out of her daze of fear.

_Dragon?_

The man-wolf released her, looking up. It snarled back, every hair that remained on it bristling. There was more snarling from somewhere behind her, and she recognized it as her beloved dog's. She heard Dragon's pawsteps lunged forward, the man-wolf leaping over her to go after Dragon. She gasped and shook like a fish out of water; more teeth and flesh sounds broke through the icy air. She could see the edges of her vision blurring, fading into black despite the agony she was in.

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><p><em>End <em>_**Chapter One: **__Encounters_

_TO BE CONTINUED_

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><p><em>The World of Darkness<em>_ copyright White Wolf Publishing_

_Luna Hamilton, Dragon and other OC characters copyright me_


	3. Chapter Two: Half A Circle Back

Dragon was no fighting dog. Lean and scruffy from so little food and so much cold, he was no different than most of the fauna after the war — his kennelmates had met their demise after their previous owners had come down sick. Dragon would never know, nor understand, why they left because of it; all he knew was that his pack had scrounged around their pen for as long as they could. Eating snow, lunging after the odd bird that perched upon the tall links, they were helpless. With no one to care for them, they fell, one by one, they fell. Resorting to eating their deceased to hold on, the meat never lasted long, and it only prolonged a hapless existence.

He couldn't tell how long ago that was, terrible at keeping time in a world with so little sun. Dragon relied on Luna to keep time, and feed him, and water him _and_ find him shelter. In return, he protected her, watched over her, and helped hunt down whatever was edible and moving. Symbiosis was at play with loyalty and love; Dragon wouldn't have it any other way. He might have run away out of instinct, a primal fear that every "man-wolf" invoked, but it was no excuse. His beloved, bleeding mistress couldn't fend off the monster herself; he would not leave her to become someone's source of food.

As his mistress lay quivering, clutching a red-oozing arm as she tried to keep focus, he bared his fangs and bristled at the man-wolf. The man-wolf did so in return, towering over him in meatless muscle, ragged and used to warring over food and property. Dragon stood his ground, hopping to the side as bear-like claws came at him. Gouging harmlessly into the snow, the man-wolf turned and swiped again, only for Dragon to once more dodge, snarling.

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><p>Luna gritted her teeth, biting back at a groan from the searing pain in her barely-useable limb. Feeling her head spin, she knew she had to stop the bleeding, or she wouldn't last long in the winterscape. She could hear her canine companion in some sort of fight, but he was shoved to the back of her mind. There were bandages in her pack — she could use those — but what about Dragon? <em>No, stay focused! You're in survival mode, dammit!<em>

Rolling onto her stomach, she tried to push herself onto her knees. Dark splatters were hitting the ground, and not all of it was hers.

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><p>Dragon hit the ground and rolled. The claws had just grazed him; he threw himself out the way too clumsily. Flipped onto his back, he was at the mercy of the man-wolf's powerful jaws upon his throat and underbelly. Only a God-given timing of the reflexes saved him — he managed to finish his roll, man-wolf claws again slamming down, landing harmlessly behind him as Dragon stumbled to his feet. Little rivulets of red were unseen upon his darker fur, but the man-wolf could smell blood and smiled nastily. He lunged forward, moving too fast for the eye to see, and Dragon didn't have enough time to move as jaws raced at him —<p>

"LEAVE HIM ALONE!"

Dragon cried out as teeth bit into his shoulder, but surprisingly, the grip was not that deep. As the mutt snarled and writhed, the man-wolf turned his head, looking at his former chew toy; Dragon was tossed aside as the monster plodded towards Luna. She could barely hold herself up, but she stared right at him, holding her Bowie with her other hand. The wolf growled at her, and Luna glared.

"Leave. Him. Alone," she repeated. "I'm your meat."

Dragon lunged again, leaping at the wolf with a savage sound. The man-wolf turned and smacked him away, such force used that Dragon was stunned by a blow to the jaw. He slid across the ground, senseless, and the man-wolf turned back to Luna. She gritted her teeth, breathing in deeply, and held her knife at the ready. The man-wolf only laughed at her.

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><p><em>One must be wondering what kind of story ends as the heroine dies. There was Luna, pathetic and helpless and bleeding, about to be savagely ripped to shreds by a diseased monstrosity. The man-wolf was twice her size, and advanced upon her as she could only watch. The conclusion is obvious: she would be lost, like many others, to things of myth and legend that prowled the endless winter.<em>

_Death is inevitable, but for some, it is not always so quick, so straightforward._

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><p>She was thrown onto her stomach, tears in her eyes. The man-wolf had seized her arm and snapped it like a twig, bone sticking out of the injury. Shock was unavoidable now, and the world was fuzzy and spinning more than ever. Her entire body felt cold, and it wasn't the weather; the man-wolf, uncaring, seized her by her pack. He sliced through the thick, waterproof fabric with some difficulty, throwing it to the side and leaving her body in a heap. Luna gasped as another wave of pain went through her injured limb, then her shoulder.<p>

The man-wolf made a chuffing sound, and Luna heard no movement for several moments. Then, he began to sift through her pack, pulling and tossing aside precious supplies, only stopping when he found several rations. Dried, salted and packaged tightly, the protective canvas wrapping was easily pulled apart like wings off a fly. He gobbled down Luna's only source of food, the young woman looking on with emotional shock now. He hadn't wanted to eat her — he had wanted what was in her pack.

He tore apart all her belongings in front of her, rendering many of them useless as he sought more nourishment. The smell of food had soaked into several of her things, and when he couldn't find anymore, he gave an unsatisfied growl. Turning to look at Luna one last time, he plodded over to the carcass he had previously feasted on. Without looking back, Dragon eerily quiet and still, Luna's vision darker than the overcast skies, he dragged away his deer and what remained of Luna's dignity.

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><p><em>The world was cruel as much as it was dead. No living soul remained of that city's populace, and the two were left by their lone selves to die. Death isn't always quick, as said before, and said for time eternal. But why should it end here? One may notice that this is but a fraction of Luna's story. Like the fragment of a sentence, the tale is abrupt, with no proper beginning and no proper end, lifted from the climax and slapped down with a cliff-hanger. Who <em>_**are **__Luna Hamilton and her dog Dragon, other than what was stated before, and up to now?_

_Repetition is tedious. There has been enough of it, especially since the end of the World and the beginning of the End. Now is not the time to restate fact, but to move on, and begin again. So, as with all stories, it must begin with the earliest memories of young Luna, formerly known as "Louise"._

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><p>It had almost been six years of winter. All around the globe, temperatures had dropped by as much as eighteen degrees, and it snowed instead of raining. The continent of North America, Luna's birthplace, was almost unrecognizable; there were only wastelands left upon the Eastern Coast. There was no semblance of education, civility or order; there was no such thing as a White House or Parliament Building, no intact and government-recognized police force, and schools and libraries had been reduced to toxic ashes. Frozen, burnt corpses littered places of heavy populace, some unrecognizable, some recently deceased and preserved by cold, mostly victims of the sickness the war had brought. The West Coast was not much better, anything important having been blown to pieces; some places fell into sinkholes caused by man-made seismic activity. In the desert, several precious water tables were forever undrinkable due to the chemicals that had fallen from the sky and soaked into the dry soil.<p>

Then, there were the monsters, and who had been dreading the end far longer than man had. Prophecy and ancient vision spoke of lands wasted and blasted by fire, and a great force of entropy was said to be waiting for such a thing to happen. Some said that ancient beings, alien and bloodthirsty, waited in eons-old tombs beneath the Earth, poised to strike when the world went up in smoke; nothing such had happened yet. Perhaps the wars had torn up the world enough that they too had been destroyed in the chaos. But the narrative somehow rambles at this point; regardless of eschatological belief, there was a united hatred against mankind for what had happened to the Earth, once prosperous and green, now barren and grey like a rotting womb in the dust.

Upon a lonely pier, where a few men and women clutched at each other, trying to stay strong, Louise Hamilton stood in the days before she was Luna and Dragon. Breezes off the ocean black-blue carried the smell of salt and fish; chugging away on whatever gas it had left, the beaten remains of an old fishing boat carried her brother and younger sister. Though there were no tears in Luna's eyes yet, they stung, and she looked wistful. It would be the last time she would see her remaining family as the left for the Old World, where it was said that a flourishing climate could be found farther southeast. _Be strong, Jim, _she thought, and her brother thought the same for her, clutching his eight-year old sister Stella as she sobbed quietly into his shoulder. Both siblings gazed at each other as their forms shrank away farther…and farther…and then, disappeared.

_Is this a good place to start, then?_

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><p><em>End <em>_**Chapter Two: **__Half A Circle Back_

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><p>The World of Darkness<em> copyright White Wolf Publishing<em>

_Luna Hamilton, Dragon and other OC characters copyright me_


	4. Chapter Three: Three Shared A Room

The next few hours were spent wandering. The pier, though full of people mostly going, had a small bunch of misfits running it. One man had scavenged several atlases and brochures on foreign places, smiling faces of men and women in swimming gear burnt around the edges. Around borders and place's names, dirt was cleaned away as best possible, but some were unrecognizable; these papers were tacked up to cork boards with "SAFE PLACES" gaudily hung on a banner above. People crowded around, gloved and soiled fingers smearing the God-given pages, directed by a woman announcing the coming and going of ships. Though they would probably die out on the water, there were those who carried as much gas and food they could with them, hauling behind them speedboats scavenged and made well. Those that could no longer run on circuitry had makeshift sails attached to them, or even oars with which to row. Silently, Luna wished them Godspeed, watching as people heaved their crafts into the water to set sail.

Night would fall quickly. Already the gloomy skies were turning blacker, and there was a sense of haste and urgency as the last few people who could try to sail before dark. On land, things better left unsaid were about to venture into the cities, already taking advantage of the lack of light during the daytime. They usually avoided settlements, but when the day was gone, it was all too easy to hunt in and use the remains for cover. More than one soul had been dragged, screaming, out of a hidey-hole thought safe, then found with all the blood in their bodies missing and their organs strewn all over. (Luna would have nominated some of the victims for a Darwin Award, as it was a well-known fact that "monster hunters" liked to claim they could sleep out in the cold at night, bothered by nobody and touched by nothing. Of course, the Internet didn't exist anymore, which was a shame.) One portly woman with some of her teeth missing ran a makeshift inn, supplied through scavenging and systems of barter and trade.

"I'd like at least two nights," said Luna, holding out the little gadget in her hand. It was an MP3 player, not an iPod, but one of those ones that people called an iPod because the brand was so synonymous with MP3 players in general. Luna had found it by someone's hand, the headphones clutched in fingers frozen closed. "It's an MP3."

The innkeeper peered closely at the device, adjusting a pair of glasses with cracked lenses upon her knobby nose. "Doesh it whork?" she asked, regarding Luna with a judgmental air. "I don't wantsh it if it don't whork."

"It works," said Luna. "It has no headphones, but you can turn it on and use it like a light." Her gloved fingers fumbled with the tiny built-in switch, eventually flicking the MP3 on and letting blue light shine brightly from its scuffed screen. "See?"

The innkeeper rubbed her chin. "Ah, we can jusht oosh it fer partsh." Snatching the MP3 out of Luna's hand, she gave the girl a battered old key. "Shecond door to yer right, go over there." A finger with a bitten nail pointed for Luna, and the girl turned and walked away. The floorboards creaked tiredly under her feet, the lights in the room supplied by many candles kept in lanterns. The windows were boarded, as the original glass was cracked and useless, and the "inn" was actually a one-story house that had been vacated and then taken over. Anything that could have looked in would have scared the living daylights out of people, then reached in and killed them; precautions had to be made to keep up some sort of business. The near-toothless lady was very proud of what she had made out of nothing, and it showed in her stature, how she carried around her cotton dress-clad bulk.

The door was padlocked shut with a chain, said chain looped through a hole bored into the door. There was some clanking as Luna pulled up the padlock, and she thought she heard footsteps coming from the inside, she opened the lock and then her room's door —

"The hell?"

She slammed it shut, stepping backwards. The innkeeper looked over from where she toyed with the MP3, giving Luna a look of indifference. "You'll hafta share," she said, uncaring, more concerned with her newest plaything and cramming as many customers into her inn as possible. "Full housh."

"I…see," said Luna, hesitantly, reaching for the knob again. She was interrupted as someone from inside threw open the door for her, brown-eyed and brown-haired, said hair pulled back into a high tail upon her head. She glared at Luna like a hawk on a falconer's hand, neck stretched forward with eyes piercing, unblinking, unwavering. Luna stepped backwards, sheepish as a lamb hiding behind her mother's leg, yet there was no mother there to hide behind. The staring contest that was not much of a contest continued between her and Pony-Tail Woman.

"Um…can I…?" began Luna, tongue held back by the wariness she felt around the intense stare of the occupant.

"No," said Pony-Tail Woman. "Go away."

"Letsh her in or I'll kick ya outsh!" yelled the innkeeper, still fiddling with that MP3 now hers. Pony-Tail Woman looked up and glared like a hawk at her too.

"We've got sick people in here; we don't need any more _disease _shoved in here! Look at the kid, her nose is full of shit!"

So it was, but it was snot, not shit. Luna quickly wiped at her nose and said, "Ma'am, I just have a runny nose from the cold, I just need to stay some place — "

"Well not in here, you ain't!" snapped Pony-Tail Woman. "Go find somewhere else to crawl into, kid!" The door slammed with finality, and Luna couldn't help but feel a bit bitter. She _had _wiped her nose, after all, and not showed one hint of rudeness. From somewhere inside the room, she heard coughing, and she turned away. From inside, Pony-Tail Woman fussed with another, the slight ruffle of sheets fixed familiar to Luna. The image that suddenly accompanied it was slammed straight into the back of her mind as quickly as it had flown across.

"…You can come in."

"_What?"_

Pony-Tail Woman had asked, and someone else had given Luna another answer. The voice creaked like an old branch in a storm, and it seemed muffled, not just by the door, but something else. "But Alma, you're — "

"…She's a kid…Kerry-Ann." There was a great and tired sigh, and an intake of breath, as if it was hard for "Alma" to speak, or even breathe. Luna wondered if it would be a good idea to go in after all; even minor colds could be a death wish in those times. "Let her come in…she won't hurt no one, I'm sure…."

There was a pause — hesitation, thought, silence. Pony-Tail Woman, apparently called "Kerry-Ann" by Alma, seemed to be weighing her options behind the peeling wooden door. Then, the handle slowly clicked and turned, and opened to reveal hawk's eyes now suspicious. "Come in," Kerry-Ann growled gruffly, and Luna stared for a moment, still unsure. Annoyed, Kerry-Ann shoved the door open and further snapped, "Well, what are you waiting for?"

From behind Kerry-Ann's figure, lanky and toned and rough like a farmer's, she saw someone lying in a bed of many quilts. The thick fabric was heaped like hay, and pulled up in such a way that Luna couldn't see the other person's face. Faintly did the pile move, suggesting breathing, which Luna found to be slightly heavy. She swallowed, Kerry-Ann glancing at the occupied bed and then at her, nose wrinkling. "Never seen someone sick before?"

Luna hurried in and looked around, finding a second, messily-made bed that had the marks of being recently laid in. "That's _mine_," snapped Kerry-Ann, and Luna looked up and nodded; the dusty mat in the middle of the room looked rather comfortable to sleep on. Hurrying over, she grabbed that, and then dragged it over to the door of a closet, the handle slightly rusted. _How long did this house just sit here?_

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><p>The closet was cramped, the darkness claustrophobic. Luna was too used to kind of darkness in which monsters spawned and thrived, like a twisted version of Minecraft that had one biome instead of a patchwork many. As such, she could barely sleep as the wind blew like a long-forgot train, which Luna swore she sometimes could hear, chugging away somewhere in the distance. Then again, that could have been the sound of cart's wheels, or the thunder of the hooves of deer, which were still numerous for some reason or another. <em>They should have been the first to die off; weird…<em>.

Though she tried to pay little attention — she had the feeling Kerry-Ann would throw the closet door open and catch her eavesdropping — she couldn't help but listen to the murmurs in the room proper. By the sound of it, Alma had a severe respiratory infection of some sort, possibly pneumonia; Luna also thought she heard the word "iodine" and a bottle swishing around. Then there was the unmistakable wrapping of bandages, which Luna had heard many times before from people treating those with burns. (Shortly after the bombs fell, if the toxins they carried didn't kill people, the firestorm they created would kill their victims first. Luna's family had lived near a hospital, and she had seen many victims stagger there, their clothes melted into their skin, looking like they had rolled in coals and been splattered with hot water all at once. Some of them, at least; she couldn't begin to describe what human charcoal looked like, even if she could call it "human charcoal" for short.)

From the sounds of it, Kerry-Ann and Alma were close. Despite sounding to be at death's doorstep, Alma quipped and joked as any person might, displaying a dry and wry sense of humour that someone, somewhere would have deemed her "deadpan" for. Kerry-Ann laughed and reminisced about fonder times, mentioning Alma's Air Force graduation and a stint in Iraq. Somewhere inside of Luna, something panged, reminiscing along with the odd pair, and she turned uncomfortably away from the door. Her father had done a stint in Iraq; the young woman could remember him leaving, his letters, coming home from his tour some years later. Then he had left again because of the second war….

"_Louise, don't worry about me. Whatever you do, __**stay **__in the fallout shelter with your mother and the others. By the time you get this, they'll probably have already started bombing. What I want you to know is that I love you…I love you dearly, Louise, but I have to go now. Help your brother take care of things; he's the man of the house now."_

She clutched the edge of the mat uncomfortably, having thrown it over herself and lying upon cold hardwood. That had been the last time she had heard her father's voice, on the message machine of her cell phone she had just received for her birthday. Then the news had come on, and the sirens had sounded, like the ones for tornadoes in Kansas, only louder and over more screaming people. An image of the shaking shelter came to mind as a thousand explosions sounded; the Earth had been shaking like God was pounding his very fist into it.

Her eyes were shut too tight as she pushed away the images in her head. The smallest sound came out of her mouth, unrecognized, and she didn't realize she was whimpering until a tired voice went, "Kid?" At that point, Luna's eyes flew open, and she abruptly snapped to a sitting position out of reflex.

"Y-yes?"

"…Come out, kid."

"Alma!"

"Kerry-Ann…you made her sleep in a closet. Come out…we won't bite…."

Luna was hesitant, but all of a sudden the darkness felt too choking. She quickly walked out with the mat dragging behind her, stopping abruptly at the piercing glare Kerry-Ann was giving her. She backed up, moving back towards the closet, ready to slam it shut and put as much of a barrier in front of her as she could. Alma's hand — so heavily bandaged the fingers looked like mummified sausages — weakly reached out, shaking, and held Kerry-Ann's gingerly.

"It's okay…" Alma rasped, taking in another harsh breath. "I don't…I don't think she'll hurt us…."

"How can you be sure?" Kerry-Ann growled, her voice so low and filled with hate and wariness, Luna was almost unnerved by it. Alma gasped again.

"I just know…trust me, Kerry-Ann…."

There was a long, tense silence on both ends. Luna was patient, but she was also afraid, afraid that Kerry-Ann might lash out at her in whatever protectiveness there was for Alma. She didn't break eye contact, not wanting to keep her guard down, and Alma seemed to shift beneath the blankets. Her head turned, pale and ashy-brown hair faintly sticking out above the covers, with a thin line of white below the hairline and wrapping it.

"Kerry-Ann…" growled the sickly woman, her voice suddenly seeming firmer, stronger and more authoritative. Kerry-Ann glanced uneasily down at her, the movement sudden, before looking back up at Luna the same way.

"Fine," she said with finality, somewhat to herself, somewhat to everyone else in the room. "Fine. But you sleep at the foot of my bed, and you _don't _get on it, okay? I need my beauty sleep, and trust me: you _do not _want to screw with me when I haven't had my beauty sleep, okay?"

Luna abruptly nodded.

* * *

><p>They all eventually went to sleep, even Kerry-Ann, who was not immune to human need in her vigil. Luna's mind quieted, and no longer did images of the End come to her, though she still seemed disturbed as she drifted off to slumber. Alma's breathing, still occasionally heavy, was the only thing other than a snowstorm outside that pierced the thick silence.<p>

_And in sleep, Alma did dream._

_The sky was filled with fire as she tried to manoeuvre her plane. Light seemed to reflect off the bottoms of clouds, everything twisted and orange below her. The fuel tank read empty, the small craft's engine smoking; what bandits would do for gas, for wiring, for a working vehicle whether airborne, land-borne or seaborne. She pulled desperately on the yoke, trying to smooth her inevitable descent, feeling the flames lick uncomfortably at her skin. She felt her hand-sewn goggles catch fire, and she patted at her hair, which was beginning to smoulder. Her aircraft was shaking, she was shaking, and unfortunately she couldn't eject. She felt so helpless, like a bug trapped in an oven, left there when the housewife baking her humble apple pie shut the oven's door without looking._

_It took only a few minutes for her to fall, and then, she hit the ground, knocked out upon impact. The last thing she remembered were the insides of her plane rushing past her and slicing at her skin, debris nailing her in one eye as she gave a choked scream, hell consuming her with its great, open maw of fiery teeth and heat-washed tongue. Even the blackness burned, her voice taken away, and she knew she had been thrown somewhere onto the doorstep of death._

_Then, somewhere in the distance, somewhere in time she could not measure, she heard a voice, desperately crying out for her._

"_**ALMA!"**_

* * *

><p><em>End <em>_**Chapter Three: **__Three Shared a Room_

_TO BE CONTINUED_

* * *

><p><em>The World of Darkness<em>_ copyright White Wolf Publishing_

_Luna Hamilton, Dragon and other OC characters copyright me_


	5. Chapter Four: They All Made Their Peace

Not one, but two minds picked through the rubble of memories in their short sleep, the cold wind blowing, screaming, as another layer of snow fell. No doubt strange things crawled around the building, but torchlight and boarded windows deterred them (as usual). Luna could be seen tossing and turning in the dark, a layer of sweat upon her forehead, restless. Usually her brother would wake her up, hold her and comfort her, as she was but fifteen years old and vulnerable to her nightmares. Yet, her brother was rocked to sleep by monstrous waves bobbing a flimsy ship, far away from his younger sibling, and Luna was so alone. The building creaked like violin's strings upon a bad note played.

Kerry-Ann looked over to Luna, a small frown playing upon her lips as her hands played with Alma's bandages. Beneath a temporary shield of cotton, wounds flaked and wept, scars everywhere; there was nothing to slake the pain's thirst as it sucked all it could out of Alma. Kerry-Ann had cradled Alma, crying, for several nights as Alma cried herself, trying to fight back the tears as her body swore at her. The only good thing was that her injured eye was healing, though Alma would never be able to use it again. From where Kerry-Ann could see through the bandages, it had turned milky grey from trauma.

Part of her wished Alma could speak. Yet, it had only been a few weeks since the accident, and Kerry-Ann feared the burn damage went into Alma's throat and lungs as well. There were also a host of new diseases cropping up, though Kerry-Ann suspected Alma had caught pneumonia; conditions were not the most hygienic at that time. When else in modern history had people left bodies in the streets to rot, food to spoil and rats to fester and breed over everything? They were all animals again, something Kerry-Ann was far too familiar with. She snugly tied a bandage around Alma's wrist, and then went to adjust the sling for that broken arm of her friend's.

"K-Kerry-Ann…."

Kerry-Ann stiffened, gingerly taking her hands off the sling. The pain must've woke Alma up; she would sleep through anything less. Even in the dark, Kerry-Ann could see the faintest reflection of light across Alma's eyes, and she smiled softly. "Yeah boss?"

"Do you…do you remember," she slurred, "…what I wrote?"

Alma had always been a bit of a poet. "Not much of it," Kerry-Ann admitted, somewhat sheepishly. Alma's breaths shook between words.

"I remember…a poem I wrote…after I got out of the hospital…." She took a deep breath, struggling to stay awake now that she was up. _"Half a circle back…three shared a room…and they all…made their peace…."_

"_Before tipping, faces first, into hell_," finished Kerry-Ann of the first verse. "Yeah, I remember that. Did you ever publish that?"

* * *

><p><em>Half a circle back,<em>

_Three shared a room_

_And they all made their peace_

_Before tipping, faces first, into hell_

_And they met, kissed the brimstone like concrete_

_Smoking like guns after a shootout —_

_The poem stopped there. The paper was scorched at the edges, and it's so old that it's weathered and brown. Once upon a time, it was crisp and white, like a fresher, firmer version of snow. The ink was so blue from a brand new pen, and Alma was so proud of herself for writing it, even if it is incomplete to the readers now._

_Are there people who believe in prophecy, fate, and destiny? The narrator does. Somehow, some way, the writers of the world are our oracles and prophets, even if they are just a casual hobbyist. Alma couldn't have known what she had written, as her mind was on other things, more important things, before the war. Before Kerry-Ann, before Luna, before everything important that would happen and change the world into a hell not hot, but frozen. Yes, people had met, kissed the brimstone, but their true punishment was the endless winter._

_Let the narrator return to the trains for an example._

* * *

><p>The train rattled, clanked along a track that felt dangerously uneven, the interior Spartan. There were faces, blank, preoccupied, unoccupied; Luna kept to herself, staring out the window. Mile after mile of barren landscape passed; grey and foreign, lost and lifeless — the very picture of her bleak reality, if there had been an artist there to paint it. The odd, emaciated deer stood still as the train went by; <em>How on Earth are they keeping alive? <em>thought Luna. Dragon lay at her feet, sleeping, unmoving unlike the countryside outside.

"May I sit here?"

The voice was a husky growl, like human words out of the mouth of a dog. Luna looked up — and _damn _did she near wet herself. A man-wolf stood on two legs, staring down at her, wearing nothing but his grizzly brown-esque pelt. His honey-coloured eyes were surprisingly human, and Dragon did not twitch, much to Luna's lesser shock in the back of her terror-addled mind. The man-wolf held up his hands in surrender.

"Oh, come now love; Old One-Tooth isn't gonna harm ya. I've got no reason to, when I'm taking care of this here train."

_The trains are run by wolves? _thought Luna.

"So are you gonna let me sit here, or not?"

"S-sure," babbled Luna, nodding quickly. Old One-Tooth nodded with a grunt (or was that more growling?), plodding over and sitting on the seat across from her. Nobody in the room seemed to notice that a giant, hulking werewolf-come-real had entered the room, and frankly, they didn't care. Luna questioned their sanity, but then the more-than-terrifying thought came over her mind that maybe he had bribed them. In exchange for not saying a word, he'd spare their lives, instead of turning them into food like many wolves turned corpses into food.

Luna swallowed, and decided to keep her mouth shut. Old One-Tooth raised his eyebrows, shaggy and furry with age betrayed by a greying muzzle. He looked out the window, sighing deeply.

"It's so cold out, love," he said. "Don't you agree?"

Luna nodded, if only to save her life.

"This used to be a beautiful stretch of land once. Wide as the open sky, green as any Irish emerald. There were fields, love, fields of crop and cattle, all fat and glistening in nature's bounty. The trees weren't skeletons; they had leaves, girl, rubbery and soft, thick and lush. The flowers were plentiful, and the world had a perfume. Can you remember anything so green, so alive, dear love?"

Luna's mind grasped at straws, crawling back to a time where such a landscape existed. She recalled the warmth of the sun and the softness of grass, but the light was painful, the texture unfamiliar. She still nodded, but her face was troubled, wiping away at the unpleasant memory like a rag upon a window. One-Tooth frowned, tilting his massive, muscled head.

"It's hard, isn't it, love? Those are just pictures to us now. Pictures and words, things we'll tell our children in storybooks. There is no land, no light, no love for us love. We can't afford compassion. We're a third-world country, in my opinion. How does that make you feel, love?"

"…Kind of bad," Luna answered, voice unsure. She frowned, and One-Tooth took this as a cue to continue.

"This…this could all have been avoided." He gestured, not to the landscape, but at a thought he tried to bring to the surface of his mind. "War is not a necessary evil. This could have been all solved if they had just taken their fingers off the button. But that button should never have existed, should it have, love? Someone should have been there to tear it, rip it out, then tear apart the idiots who pressed them. Teared up into little shreds for good measure, and beat the shit out of the worm in their gut that was making them do it all along…."

He trailed off, baring his teeth. He growled in frustration, slapping the seat; Luna flinched. Old One-Tooth stared at the ground, guilty, a great weariness settling onto his shoulders and face. He could not look at Luna, he was so ashamed.

"I am an Iron Rider," he said, "thought at one time, you might have had me ride on glass and rims rather than iron. This train is my home — my link. My connection. I see to it that its gears work perfectly, that its functions are all correct, that there isn't anything that might cause it to crash. I take these people to and fro, place to place, hoping that I can save them from rotting here any longer. I fear though, that my time is up, and it is wasted. I don't know how long I can keep the train going."

"Do you have fuel?" asked Luna. She knew something about machines, but trains had never been an interest of hers, so she was not very understanding of them. "Is that why you're worried about your train?"

One-Tooth nodded. "Something like that. There are too many of them, love; too many for this old Rider to keep track off. I can only do so much for them in the bowels of hell when hell is eating at me itself."

It was then that Luna noticed One-Tooth's torso. It was raked with scars pulled taut over bones, ribs at the spine, arms and legs twigs and wasting muscle. Strange, how she had just noticed that; perhaps she had been too scared to register it before? Whatever the reason, the site made her stomach knot in pity. He looked _awful_, yet Luna was thinning herself. Why did she feel such a way?

A person coughed, scratching at a burn. Large, purple bruises dotted the arms of one woman, and she rubbed them beneath her coat. Another adjusted a hair extension, frowning at how her thin hair seemed to be so easily tangled around it. Luna noticed them out of the corner of her eye, but she could not take her gaze off of Old One-Tooth and his battered frame. "How long have you been like this?" she asked. One-Tooth sighed.

"Since the End," he said. "It began with the blasts, and it all went downhill from there. My entire pack, all gone, except for some kin and the pups. They went…to another place, but I couldn't follow. Too thick a barrier to pass, and besides, who would help all these people?"

"You're alone," said Luna, and One-Tooth nodded. "You're trying so hard to help them, and you're not well. What happened to your food and water?"

"There's not enough," said One-Tooth. "Too many irradiated sources around here, and eating snow makes me sick. I won't touch the dead; I'm not a savage, not like those desperate souls who've no sense of shame. The worm's in their gut, too; that's why they eat people. I don't think it's mankind's fault for this."

"Then whose is it?" asked Luna, genuinely curious. The burnt person coughed a little harder, wiping something away from their face. The woman with a hair extension winced as she pulled out a strand of hair from trying to fix her extension. The bruised woman held her head, feeling a migraine coming on. One-Tooth looked sadly at Luna.

"The worm in our bellies, love," he said. "The worm that crawls around and makes us walk to whatever evil deeds we do in our lifetime. It's a maggot, a snake and an ash-boring beetle all in one; it has no regard for light or love. It feels only regret, desire, and it has no hope, only anger. It's been there a long, long time, love, and it isn't ever going away, not with its fangs in our world."

Luna didn't understand, but slowly nodded instead. "The worm?"

"The worm," growled One-Tooth. "I've been trying to fight it, even when it chews at me. It chews at these people too, but I protect them. I protect them from it, from everything that wants to hurt them. They've been hurt badly in the past, love, and it's all the war's fault."

"What do you mean?" said Luna. The burnt woman flinched as her burn started to ache. The woman with the hair extension growled in frustration, accidentally pulling out more hair. The woman with the bruises leaned forward, gagging a little as nausea overwhelmed her. One-Tooth's eyes began to mist.

"There's no peace, love," he said, voice growing distant. "Only memory. These walls, these tracks, they're not real. They're just an imprint of what really happened." One-Tooth looked thoughtful for a moment, and then leaned in towards Luna, who pulled backwards slightly.

"Do you want to see what _really _happened?"

Luna, for some reason she couldn't explain, nodded. In a flash of colour and in a whirl of creation, the train was more furnished, the landscape outside was more brilliant, and Luna realized that she was looking at a scene before the end. Strangely enough, One-Tooth remained his emaciated self, gesturing with a scythe-ended paw at the sight.

"Watch," he said, his voice gravelly and grave. "Watch and see."

For a few minutes, all seemed normal, with people chatting, giggling and carrying on as usual. All of a sudden, a loud siren screamed through the peace, and everyone in the cabin seemed to jump. Then there was a loud booming off in the distance, and a bright flash of a white, and a cry —

"IT'S THE BOMB!"

The cabin was filled with screaming. People ran for cover, tripping and shoving and bawling like babies that were drowned out by the sound. Tables were knocked over and glass and ceramics were shattered, and a few souls were trampled underfoot, the sickening crack of breaking bones like gunshots in the din. And all the while, roaring like a lion as it charged over the green, there was a wave of fire — a wave of power.

The train screamed as it was sent flying, knocked off the tracks like a great hand had batted it off. Luna also flew, through the air and in a sea of bodies smashed and sliced through the metal coffin. One-Tooth also went flying, but he was lost to Luna, her losing sight as it felt like her very body was melting. She gasped for air, her skin turned to ash, and she let out the barest of a strangled choke.

* * *

><p>Luna awoke with a start, Dragon perking his head up at her feet. She blinked, then sat up, rubbing furiously at her eyes. The rusted, gutted interior of the train was silent, save for the blowing of the wind outside. Looking around, she saw nothing, all barren and quiet, long-abandoned and long since working.<p>

_That's right, _thought Luna. _I fell asleep. _Standing up, she took a breath, realizing she had been startled awake by a dream she couldn't quite remember. Unnerved, she muttered, "Come on Dragon," and moved forward; the dog promptly stood up and followed after her. The pair walked down the aisle to a door half-opened, Luna looking around before jumping out into the snow.

If she had looked down a few seats, she might have spotted the old, ragged body of a man, emaciated and covered in scars, curled up in death upon the floor.

* * *

><p><em>End <em>_**Chapter Four: **__They All Made Their Peace_

_TO BE CONTINUED_

* * *

><p><em>The World of Darkness copyright White Wolf Publishing<em>

_Luna Hamilton, Dragon and other OC characters copyright me_


	6. Chapter Five: The Visionary's Blues

She had to keep running. All she could do was keep running.

The beasts, jaws slavering, pursued her in her world and the next. She tore through the trees, twisted and barren, cold skeletons in the wake of their hated, feared Apocalypse. Sticks wove themselves into her hair, and branches left their calling card with raking fingers for twigs; she was of the woods. She would _always _be of the woods, if her family, her jailers, had anything to do about it. The dead forest tried to snare her like a rabbit in a trap; unfortunately for the hostile bush, that little rabbit knew how to think faster than the predators could run.

Kerry-Ann O'Malley refused to be used, and she also refused to let the woods take her her. Her womb was not anyone's property, her mate her own choosing, as was whether or not she'd be picking flowers anytime soon. Her kind had been swearing up and down that the Apocalypse was their enemy, that great and feral monsters beyond her knowing were their enemies. It was their responsibility, their _duty _to protect the Mother Goddess and her domain; if they wanted to keep back the tide of destruction, they should have sought out more packs. So many wolves had fallen prey to ancient spirits of death and destruction, the fears of surviving humans and other things that went bump in the night; packs were fractured, unity needed, a nation divided. But what did her elders demand instead? _"Go forth and multiply." _Rather than throw a bone to those who might need it, take in those lost and forgot and abandoned in war's wake, they wanted cubs. They wanted breeders. They wanted people like Kerry-Ann to give up, to feed and carry little brats who would be honed into vicious killers. Then her children would be expected to breed, and all arguments would be silenced with a smack or a gouge across the face. At one time, it might not have been as brutal, but again were the days of human culling and primitive, primal means of governing.

She would not settle for an arranged marriage to _any _of the miserable bastard males that were the packs' full-blooded wolves, and neither would she force any half-blooded kin to have to be with her. Like how a wolf might have run from a hunter in a helicopter, she would move, move, _move_, and keep moving until the end of time, until she was no longer pursued. With a snarl, Kerry-Ann slapped aside a half-dead pine branch, kicking aside the thick bushes underfoot of another thicket, grunting and panting as a sharp twig jabbed her in the eye.

She needed to get out of that damn forest before they crossed over to her reality. In the woods, it was too easy, their connection to the natural world allowing them to slip back and forth with ease. But that velvet curtain of theirs had an iron wall behind it in the cities, and there she could hide, her scent lost among the corpses and the broken buildings. The wide, open plains would allow nothing to hide for her, and she would travel as far and as fast as she could. Kerry-Ann would renounce the wolves and all ties to them, for especially after their change of heart, she couldn't stand being one of them. All there was in her was their blood; she did not move between worlds, she did not suffer from random spurts of killing fury, and she had a single body instead of five. A human was what she was — her father had been the wolf, the transforming, apathetic warrior-beast that was no better than the others. Kerry-Ann had been dragged along for the ride by fate, but like many things, fate could be manipulated to one's advantage.

They were shifting back now, their growls and cries for her to stop and come back thundering through the trees. The adrenaline in her only coursed faster, and more and more old stomping grounds fell underfoot. There was distance between her and them; though she was half-blindly remembering the routes through the pack's outer territory, she still knew them well. They had been her favourite places to play as a child, when everything was still green, and when she could have called the wolf-men her friends.

Perhaps that was why, in the dark of the room and with Luna asleep, Kerry-Ann held onto Alma as tightly as was tolerable. Though the wolves had been renounced as ally and family, Kerry-Ann had still been influenced by their ways. Everyone needed a pack, whether the other half of Kerry-Ann's brain argued against that; though there was only her and Alma, Alma was her pack. Her rock. Her mother and sister in a single figure, quiet and stoic, aloof but not too aloof. It was the perfect counter to the fierce, rugged wolf-child that was Kerry-Ann, who barked as hard as she bit, and who wasn't afraid to express her strong emotions.

* * *

><p>The adolescent's stomach twisted in a cold knot as the images halted. Luna wasn't quite sure how or what she had seen, only that the woman called "Kerry-Ann" looked younger, and that there had been a flash of a familial, powerful bond between her and Alma. All Luna knew was what she did, and that what she had seen seemed too familiar. It unsettled her as she played possum, pretending to be asleep when she could not be such; she thought she had heard something prowling around outside of the house. Her nerves were on edge, charged with the electricity of primal fear.<p>

She must have shifted a little too loudly, as she suddenly heard Kerry-Ann rise. Urgent footsteps moved towards Luna, and she froze, every muscle rigid. Kerry-Ann's footsteps halted but a hair's breadth behind Luna, and Luna could hear her heart pounding. The rhythm of her own body seemed drowned out by another footstep, and Luna's body went stiffer, perhaps unwisely, as Kerry-Ann kicked at her like a pebble. Well, it was more like a nudge, but her muscles and skin were rock-solid enough that her nerves registered something different.

"That's right, you little leeching shit," the woman spat, quietly as she could. A rustle of covers meant that Alma stirred just a little, but seemed to be still otherwise. "You'll stay there until you've got to go, if you know what's good for you."

Luna neither responded nor moved, and this seemed to please Kerry-Ann. The woman returned to Alma's side, and Luna retreated into the darkness of her own mind, safely behind closed eyes. She tried to get back to sleep, imagining herself drifting off on a warm summer breeze…the sound of spring rain…that gentle hum of her mother's as she recalled the sound of _The_ _Mockingbird Song_….

But that wasn't her mother's voice that was singing her to sleep. In fact, the older Stella Hamilton's voice was fading away into someone else's.

* * *

><p>"<em>It's okay, it's okay! Don't move, I know it hurts, I know it hurts…."<em>

Her skin was peeling off in layers — no, it had melted. Something felt like it had sunk its teeth into one of her eyes (her right), and there was an unrecognizable, agonizing pain. Her entire body was wracked with it, and she could barely breathe, barely register the feeling of hands cleaning her wounds. Iodine was placed, stinging, and she could feel things being pulled from her eye. She gave a strangled screaming, writhing and clawing at a hand at her face.

"_No no no no! Sh-sh, sh-sh! Hush now, Alma…hmmm, hm hm hm, don't you say a word; Momma's gonna buy you a mock-ing bird…."_

Luna suddenly felt detached. One moment, she _was _Alma, and the next, she was staring at the pair from across the room. Alma was sleeping, and over her shallowly-breathing form, Kerry-Ann fussed with the blankets. Her movements were nervous, jerking, almost like Kerry-Ann was half-distracted; she seemed to be at the point of nodding off. "Now you just keep comfortable," the woman said softly, tender as a baby's skin in her tone, "and sleep. You'll need all the sleep you can get to help your immune system."

Luna twitched herself, flinching back as Kerry-Ann seemed to turn to her. But instead, Kerry-Ann stood up and stepped over something — Luna was unnerved to see it was her own body — on the floor. Looking ready to collapse from exhaustion, Kerry-Ann pulled back the covers, flopping in and barely pulling the cloth over her. The bed creaked as it was laid in, and then slowly, gradually, Kerry-Ann seemed to fade. Luna thought she heard the faint tune of _The Mockingbird Song _again, hummed soft and steady, silenced as Kerry-Ann faded away. The bed was left as it was before it was hopped into, and Luna couldn't believe it was real.

_But was it?_

Before she could think more on the matter, there was a sickening, squelching sound that came out as a cough. It came from Alma, and Luna abruptly turned to face the sick woman's bed. Alma was writhing like a worm on a hook, clutching at her chest with bandaged hands, that bandaged face of hers rising above the covers. Red fluid spluttered from her mouth, staining the bandages as Alma struggled to breathe. Out of concern for her fellow man (as Luna was a genuinely nice girl), Luna ran over and tried to pull Alma's hands away. For some reason, she knew what was wrong; _It's your chest, isn't it? _Alma seemed to nod in response, even though Luna had only thought those words. The grip on her chest loosened, and Luna was able to push Alma's now-claret palms away from her body; she had begun to bleed from the lungs area. For a moment, Luna breathed sharply in; her eyes fixated on the bloody mass on bandages that criss-crossed Alma's torso.

The younger woman didn't know what she was doing next. All she knew was that she was shaking like a leaf; then, she was unwrapping the bandages around the heavy bleeding. As she peeled back layer after layer, Alma's crying worsened, the writhing growing worse. Luna found herself trying to hold Alma down with one hand, as she needed to see more of the problem. Eventually she got to the final layer, and Luna had noticed that the more she unwrapped, the squishier the texture of Alma's flesh became. Hesitantly, the final bandage was pulled back —

_Thump thump, squelch. Thump thump, squelch._ Bloody and heaving, straining against the cold air, a visceral and glistening ribcage lay open; the smell that wafted upwards was the smell of death. Luna couldn't control her gag reflex, and a wall of bile came slamming against her tongue and teeth, everything suddenly turning black.

* * *

><p>She woke up coughing, the vile taste of puke leaking out from between her lips. With a gag, she wiped at her mouth, recoiling back at the sight of a small puddle on the floor before her. Whitish-greenish, the smell made her eyes burn, and Luna immediately sat up. Wiping at her face, she sniffed, feeling cold and shivering weakly; the room was chilly. Looking around, Luna was surprised as much as she wasn't to see Kerry-Ann missing; Alma still remained where she way. The woman coughed and groaned, giving a feverish mutter, and Luna stood up and walked over to her. Like a young child might shake awake her mother, Luna gently grasped at Alma's arm, nudging her ever-so-gently. Alma gasped in pain, hacking for a moment as her head weakly turned left and right.<p>

"…What? K-Kerry-Ann…? Kerry…Kerr-Ann…."

"Um…I'm not Kerry-Ann," Luna said softly, suddenly feeling awkward. "Um…I just shook you awake to, uh…see if you were okay?"

Alma coughed again, and then drew in a raspy breath. "Water…" she croaked, her teeth chattering as the final syllable took on a pained note. "Water…."

Luna had a water bottle with her that still had some clean water in it. Her fingers searched for the space in-between bandages that revealed Alma's mouth; she pushed the bandages back slightly to create an opening. Gently, she used one hand to prop up Alma's head, the other reaching inside her jacket to withdraw the bottle. Popping open the cap, she held the bottle to Alma's mouth, tipping the bottom upwards. The ill woman drank eagerly.

* * *

><p><em>End <em>_**Chapter Five:**__ The Visionary's Blues_

_TO BE CONTINUED_

* * *

><p>The World of Darkness<em> copyright White Wolf Publishing<em>

_Luna Hamilton, Dragon and other OC characters copyright me_


	7. Chapter Six: Desperate Passage

Kerry-Ann didn't return for the remainder of the night. Luna felt nervous, as there was an element of wrongness to the picture; Kerry-Ann was clearly Alma's caretaker. As such, Luna expected her to be by Alma's side constantly, and if she did leave, it was never more than a few rare minutes. Just from what she had witnessed, the girl had a feeling that Kerry-Ann would not be so cold as to leave Alma behind. Whatever had caused her to leave, it had been significant, and Luna found herself taking up the tireless vigil over Alma.

Staying in the room was turning out to be very boring. The wind cried outside and people muttered and clomped around inside; nothing out of the ordinary. Luna found herself counting cracks in the ceiling, no doubt the source of the draft; Alma barely stirred. She then paced across the floor, humming old, nameless tunes to herself and familiar pop songs, all just to break the near-silence. Even a few syllables of something from Justin Bieber were uttered, if just to make _something _happen in the room.

Eventually a lapse of time too long did pass. No longer did Luna sit; now things were becoming ridiculous. With a quick glance at Alma to see if she was awake, the girl went to the door, opening it and closing it (unlocked) as quietly as she could. The burly woman who owned the "inn" was at the front desk, still playing with the salvaged MP3. Luna walked over to her, clearing her throat to get the woman's attention. Tired, annoyed eyes stared straight back at her.

"Whatsh?"

"Have you seen that woman who was snapping at me last night, ma'am?" asked Luna. "Her friend is sick. I need to find her."

"She leftsh," the innkeeper slurred. "Wentsh outsh thish mornin'. Havna seen 'er sincesh."

Luna's stomach turned uncomfortably. "Thank you," she said, voice carrying an unnerved twinge; Kerry-Ann wouldn't go and leave her sick friend alone, would she? Especially seeing how much she distrusted Luna. There was _definitely _something not right; Luna made a beeline for the door, hurrying out as fast as she could. It might have been unwise to leave Alma by herself, but she needed to find Kerry-Ann.

Stumbling outside, she was instantly caught up in a wave of people. Dragging boats and belongings towards the vast shore of the sea, a preacher was calling out Biblical passages and phrases, summoning his flock to take to the sail. "If Jesus could walk upon water," he cried, "then perhaps we, too, may walk, God willing! The faithful are strong, as strong as the fishermen of Galilee, and we will take their strength that they held upon the seas!" Luna, for obvious reasons, couldn't care less; she began to push through and move people aside, or at least as best she could.

She made it twenty paces — she was counting so she wouldn't get lost — before she stopped. Limply she let herself be shoved to the side, leaning against a building when she caught herself. Alma couldn't be left alone; a woman so seriously ill might need help if something happened. If she died, it might be a long and painful process, choking on her own spit or falling and hitting her head. A million and one horrible scenarios raced through Luna's mind, and she clutched at her hair and head. She bit her lip, letting out a small whine as she fought with herself. To stay, or to go? _To stay, or to go?_

Her mind was quickly made up at the thought of someone else entering the room. She could say Alma lying there, helpless as a newborn kitten. Someone might take the room for themselves, quietly dispatching of Alma in a manner not so obvious. She might be unconscious from pain or weakness, and then…what if whoever came in wasn't quick? What if they were some sort of sick sadist, enjoying immensely another's suffering? Alma could be strangled slowly, or have all her fingers broken before someone cut her throat, or, or…or what if someone decided they were feeling a little "lonely"?

Luna pivoted on her heel and _ran _for the room again. How surprised the innkeeper must have been to see her burst through that door, fumbling with the lock before she threw it open. Running in, the young woman slammed the door behind her, loud enough to cause grumbling and curious poking-out from the other tenants. The innkeeper scowled at where Luna had been.

"Oi, keepsh itsh down, we gotsh other guestsh!"

"Sorry!" came Luna's door-muffled reply as her voice tempered into soft murmuring. Luna shook Alma awake, asking her over and over again if she was okay.

* * *

><p>Begging for food was beneath her. Yet, Kerry-Ann had given away everything she could, even parts of herself, to get everything she needed. She limped through the snow, clutching at much-needed groceries, as a preacher bellowed the Word with a bullhorn mouth. Most of it was cold and canned, but a wicked knife on her person would easily hack them open. Rather, the challenge was trying to get back to the inn before it was too dark, shoving past the emigrating masses with one hand as the other clutched supplies. A glare was what she gave all of them; they didn't deserve her time of day. They called themselves Christians of Galilee, or some other such nonsense; they were broken and burnt out from finding a place on land, and were retreating to the sea for their salvation. Their boats were painted with crosses and fishes, wards and prayers, all so that the cold seas would spare them as they sought new life. Part of Kerry-Ann wished them to hell, them and their sheepish tendencies; yet, she also wished them well. It took guts to try and conquer such a hostile frontier like a nuclear winter's sea — she wished them Godspeed on their travels. (But only in the back of her mind, of course.)<p>

Alma's morphine had no doubt run out. Kerry-Ann had promised that it would be a quick grocery run, that she'd only be an hour or so. Yet, in times like hers, finding food could be difficult and nigh-impossible; like their ancestors, hunting and gathering was a way of life. Picking through the rubble for what had been left behind, her fingers and feet were bruised and cut, and whatever she hadn't found she had to barter for. Darkness was falling, making the bleak landscape even bleaker, and Kerry-Ann had found that the aforementioned begging sometimes went to extremes. She rubbed at a sore spot on her neck, still feeling unnerved from an exchange that gave her some Vitamin C tablets. With Alma so ill, her body would need extra nutrition, and they hadn't been getting enough of the vitamin lately; scurvy was a real worry for Kerry-Ann.

The presence of the young girl also weighed on Kerry-Ann's mind. She trusted no one else but herself with Alma's care, as no one else could be trusted. Before her plane had crashed, Alma had been one of the few people who could build and operate a plane. When Kerry-Ann had met her at a backwater refugee camp, reduced to roasting rats over a spit because she lacked food, everyone had fawned over the aircraft Alma piloted. The _Argo_, as it had been called, had been painted with a red _griffin segreant _that could be seen from a mile away; it let people know Alma was coming. Alma's face would be as recognized as her symbol, Kerry-Ann figured, and there might be those who might threaten Alma's life if she did not help them make a second plane. What kind of damage could be done to Alma, and hell, what kind of damage would be done to surviving humanity if someone rebuilt a _war plane_? Anyone could be a spy for some sort of secret, malevolent faction — that wasn't Kerry-Ann's paranoia talking.

She fumbled with the inn's doorknob, frustrated after nearly tripping and spilling her hard-earned supplies. Shoving the door open, she made a beeline for her room, marching with an air that radiated impatience and crankiness. Her fingers treated the lock like it was a stress ball, the key pinging off the side as she stabbed it. Only after several tries did she shove the key in, and the door might as have well been blown open with dynamite. Kerry-Ann stormed into her temporary quarters, glaring at all she could as she surveyed the interior.

There, by Alma's bedside, was the girl. Bandages were unwrapped around Alma's face, and something was held to the injured woman's lips. Out of reflex and the sheer need to protect Alma, Kerry-Ann lunged like a hand with a knife. Wordlessly, all the fury she needed etched onto her face; she smacked the girl across the face with a hand. The girl fell, yelping, as Alma jolted into further wakefulness. What the girl held — a water bottle — hit the floor with a_ thump_.

"Try to off my friend while I'm out, eh?" Kerry-Ann snapped, teeth bared like an animal's. "Think you can get the jump on me and try and poison her, you whimpering _cub_?"

The girl shoved herself back until she hit the side of Kerry-Ann's bed. "I-I was just trying to help, honest!" she cried, and Kerry-Ann stomped over and grabbed her by the shirt's front. She was hefted into the air like a leg of lamb for the feast; Kerry-Ann's eyes were manic with rage.

"You're lying," the irate woman growled. "I know you are, you little scumbag." She slapped the girl across the face a second time. "What was in that?"

"Water!" cried the girl. She was beginning to tear up, the miserable coward. "It, it was just water!"

Kerry-Ann slapped her a third time. "THE TRUTH!" she bellowed. "Give me the truth, NOW!"

Alma's voice came out in a pained croak. "K-K…Kerry-Ann…. Stop…." She coughed, giving a wild gasp and a hoarse intake of breath. Kerry-Ann immediately dropped the girl and ran back to Alma's side; she quickly inspected the bandages for tampering. All there was was a trickle of liquid out the side of Alma's mouth, sliding over red, raised and scarred skin from her burns.

"Alma? Alma, can you hear me? What happened, what did she do?"

The girl took the distraction as a chance to run out.

* * *

><p>If the innkeeper had been at the front, she might have said something to keep Kerry-Ann from attacking. Even if it was a glorifying thought, Luna liked to believe the innkeeper as a matronly, firm woman, a protector and overseer of all the people in her ramshackle housing. She would have put her foot down, told that miserable witch to shut up and leave Luna alone. The young woman's face still smarted from the slapping, red with handprints from the assault. In another place, in another time, Luna could have had Kerry-Ann arrested for assaulting a minor!<p>

The time for grumbling was not then, however. Nightfall would come soon, and Luna had nothing left but the essentials to barter. She needed to find a new water bottle, for one, but shelter was a more primary priority. She skulked along the half-ruined town, peeking into makeshift shelters old and new, reconstructed and recently left behind. Every one of them seemed to be filled with tired travellers, and a few of those travellers glared darkly at Luna. The force of their gazes, added to the fright instilled in her by Kerry-Ann's attack, made her jerk back and swiftly scoot away. Every time the sunlight seemed dimmer, Luna's stomach turned once more, and she felt her heart sinking with the shrouded sun. If she didn't find lodgings by dark, what out there could come and get her?

Somehow in her wandering, she found herself moving with the crowd of Galilee Christians. "To the sea we return, where Jesus awaits us!" cried the preacher, leading on his flock dutifully to the water. "He will walk upon the waves and rejoin us, and show us the guiding light! From the storm he emerges, and like Peter, we shall walk, and some may doubt! However, those that remain strong…." On and on the preacher prattled; Luna half-listened, more focused on the horde of people carrying boats of all kinds to the shore. From the smallest rowboat to a mass of people pulling a carted sailboat, it was just as before, everyone labouring to seek a new life. _What kind of life involves freezing on the ocean with hundred-foot waves? _thought Luna.

"You with anyone?"

The voice diverted her attention to a young, red-headed boy, who was dragging a light birch canoe behind him. His face smeared with dirt, his blue eyes tired but alight, Luna gave him risen eyebrows for his question. "Beg your pardon?"

"You've got no boat," said the redhead. "You can't sail with no boat. You with anyone?"

"No," Luna answered. "I followed the crowd."

"Ah," said the boy, as if everything suddenly made sense. "You're a believer, then?"

"Not really," answered Luna. "I just kind of felt…drawn."

"That's the Lord's work for ya," the boy said, and not without a hint of pride. "He shepherds us sheep where we're supposed to go. Jesus is gonna meet us out on the water, you know; teach us to live at sea like Peter of Galilee did. Lot better than staying on this hunk of nothing and nowhere, I say."

Luna couldn't help but feel slightly insulted at that comment. Frowning, trying not to seem like she was glaring, she quipped back, "Lot better than getting thrown overboard at sea."

"Not necessarily," said the boy. "I mean, hell — and don't tell Father Nunelly I said that — it can't be worse than staying on a frozen rock while waiting for the bloodsuckers or wolves to get ya, right? At least the sea doesn't have 'em."

He made a very good point. "Yeah, but what will you do about food and water?" asked Luna.

"We brought plenty," said the boy. "We'll share. A bundle of arrows can't break like a single one does, you know?"

The thought struck a chord in Luna. She found herself falling silent, no rebuttal or question in response. A single arrow could break, while the bundle stood like standing stones; Jim had once said that to her. Her brother had always been the poet, even in the snowfalls and bitter, hungry days of the End's world. If she recalled correctly, he had gone with a group of Galilee Christians, thankful to find some sort of support group in that cold reality. Luna believed not the promises of Jesus on the water, or that their rickety, pathetic boats, scavenged from harbours and personal belongings, would take them very far. She had heard the worlds' weather went berserk after the End; storms raged constantly brought on by climate change. If disease and spoilt goods did not kill the Galilee Christians, then it would be the ocean to swallow them whole.

She followed the hopeless sailors for a while, coming again to the makeshift port they were departing from. As she stood, watching, the boy hoisted his canoe onto a small houseboat, going with some relatives of his. "The canoe's a backup," he said, helping move supplies in as Luna watched. "It's in case anything happened to the boat. Always have a backup, right?"

Luna nodded silently, wordless. Darkness was falling, and she just stood there, the Galilee Christians toiling away with their holy quest for better pastures. All the while, the preacher preached as only preachers could in the apocalypse.

"He carries us over water and casts out the darkness! Through snow and sleet and rain, God prevails! We the children carry the torch, and thank all that remains; cast not your eyes to the ground, but to the heavens, where God waits along with the sun! Though there is no warmth, there is warmth within, of the living human and the bodies we have been given; though there is much danger, we are many, and we are strong. We are firm, steadfast, seeking the ways of Holy Peter; we contribute to the methods tried and tested and true. Hark, the holy angels sing! Though the sun sets, it will rise again, and upon the seas we move! To glory, my children, and to faith…!"

By then, Luna had stopped listening. As she saw the red-haired boy wave, calling out, "Good luck!" to the wayward girl, Luna wiped at her nose still running. She watched as the boy's boat cast out, the motor puttering to life with what little gas had been scavenged. As it lazily pulled away, headed for the horizon and whatever lay beyond, Luna had no regrets in staying. She did however, regret something.

_ I wish you had never gone with them, Jim._

* * *

><p><em>End <em>_**Chapter Six:**__ Desperate Passage_

_TO BE CONTINUED_

* * *

><p>The World of Darkness<em> copyright White Wolf Publishing<em>

_Luna Hamilton, Dragon and other OC characters copyright me_


	8. Chapter Seven: Human Connection

The dark, jagged figures of remaining buildings loomed over her like spectres. Flakes fell, yet again, and peppered her with white. The town was silent now, all of the Galilee Christians either in shelters or on the sea. The young boy was mostly likely chatting about his future, excitedly following his family on their pilgrimage to the ocean. Luna had a feeling he'd be dead in a few days, whether because of a storm, injury or bad food; she wished she hadn't walked with him to the pier. Her brother and sister had just left shortly before, after all, and that scene and the boy's departure were looping in her head like a CD track.

She had done the right thing. Jim was adamant in going, so Luna let him go; she couldn't take care of her sister like Jim could, so young Stella II had left too. Even if they were dead by then, the Galilee Christians would take good care of them. After all, if the little redhead had been so kind and friendly to Luna, what did that say about the group as a whole? Both trust and distrust was felt towards the Galilees. Luna believed they honestly wanted to help, but just how much did their preacher, or the boaters even, know about navigating on the sea?

It was too black out to be wandering alone. The buildings nearby would make great shelter, some even lit with fire from within. But, judging by her earlier reception to poking around, Luna knew she wouldn't be welcome; force might be used upon her. It reminded her of something she saw a while ago — once, while camping with Jim and Stella in a ruined town, they had been watched. Little feet scurried in the distance, hungry human eyes peering at them like a coyote's, she remembered. Hunched, shivering, holding themselves, strange figures gazed longingly at Luna's food and drink, and some of the skinny spectres walked towards the firelight.

* * *

><p><em><strong>BANG!<strong>_

The figures shrieked, their voices young, their cries high-pitched. Jim fired another shot, yelling like he was yelling at an animal to leave. Stella II jostled awake, crying out at the loud noise; Luna jumped to her feet, frightened and ready to start swinging. Jim glared into the distance, watching as the figures wailed and scurried away, indignation and irritation written all over his face.

"What was that?" Luna asked quickly, heart racing down some invisible train track in her chest. Jim turned his head slightly to look at her; most of his vision was focused on the horizon, Luna barely out of his blind spot.

"Feral children," said Jim. Luna looked at him like he had grown a second head.

"…Children?" she asked.

"Yeah," answered Jim, his tone uneasy as he reloaded and pumped his shotgun. "Well, you could have called them children once. Now they're more like a pack of intelligent coyotes; keep your guard up tonight. I think they've been following us since we split from the group."

"Jim, they're kids!" cried Luna. "You're, you're just gonna try and _shoot them_?" Neither Jim nor Luna seemed to have noticed that Stella II had begun to bawl, clearly terrified by the sudden turn of events. Jim only glared at his little sister.

"There's nothing human about them anymore, Luna," said Jim. "They've grown up without being taught how to be civilized. They hunt, gather and travel around like wild animals, and I've seen them tear people apart with their teeth and fingernails to steal some food. They can't speak properly, and a lot of them are probably brain-damaged from radiation. Every time one is put down, it's a mercy."

"But — "

"Shut it, Luna!" Jim snapped, eyeing the the horizon with even more scrutiny. The fit his sisters were throwing had thrown off his concentration, and he thought he saw a shadow hurry back towards them. "Go calm down Stell. I have to make sure they don't come back."

* * *

><p>Her brother had been the stoic, always distant after the loss of their mother. Gone was the smart and sarcastic idol she had a healthy rivalry with, replaced by some bitter, broken shell who acted more like the army Sergeant he always wanted to be. Luna kicked at the rubble-strewn ground, sending a pebble bouncing across the ground, hands in her pockets; thinking about Jim wasn't healthy. He was gone, he and "Little Stella", as her sister had been called. She looked up —<p>

"…Kid!"

A voice.

A familiar voice was calling out.

Luna froze, her blood replaced with ice. Consequences be damned, she dove into the nearest alcove, squeezing herself in as best she could. Despite being skinny from little food, she was still large-framed and big-boned, and getting in was a struggle. Her heart quivered as Kerry-Ann came around the corner, head turning left and right. She surveyed the area like she was a hawk upon her perch, waiting for the rabbit to come out and run.

"Kiiiiiid!" yelled Kerry-Ann again. "Kiiiiiiiiid! Hey, kid! Seriously, come out now, I'm not gonna hurt ya! I mean, yeah, I hit you, but I can explain that!"

There was no way, come Hell or Heaven, that she was moving from her spot. She was as still as the crumbling stone around her, stomach twisting into knot after knot. Her hands clenched, she trembled lightly and she covered her mouth, fearing the steam on her breath would be seen. Kerry-Ann continued to skulk forward, trying to call out to her still, and passed by Luna's hiding place. Luna did not dare to even look out until Kerry-Ann footsteps moved farther away, first loud and then echoing, distant and then gone.

One fit cautiously stuck out, testing the ground like testing water to swim. Finding a secure footing over the layer of debris, Luna slowly pushed her way out, managing to make it halfway. Then, somehow, she got caught; half of her remained in the crack in the stone, while the other was flailing to get rid. She pushed and shoved, grunting, becoming more frantic as a sharp piece of concrete dug into her stomach. Damn her big-boned frame that had been the source of so many fat jokes!

After a solid ten minutes of trying to free herself, Luna began to weep with terror. The darkness was as claustrophobic as the closet in Kerry-Ann's room, and everything seemed like it was going to swallow her up. Sounds were amplified by paranoia, and the hot blood surging through her ears was not enough to drown them out. Her breath came in harsh, panicked pants, and she tried to wriggle free with all her might, scraping her cold fingers in the process. The sound of crunching footsteps came back again, and Luna was horrified to see Kerry-Ann coming back around the corner.

"Kid?"

Luna fought harder, and Kerry-Ann rushed to her side. When the older woman tried to touch Luna, the adolescent screamed and smacked her, yelling indignantly, "GET BACK! GET BACK!" Kerry-Ann swore something foul, and planted one foot against the stone, her strong grip digging into Luna's arm and shoulder. Despite the adolescent's best efforts, Kerry-Ann yanked her free, jumping back as Luna fell to land on sharp rock and glass. Not even the layer of snow was enough to keep the pointed ends from jabbing into her, and the impact, small as it was, was like a hammer to her brain. Arms crossed, Kerry-Ann shook her head.

"Now will you listen to me?" she asked. Luna just lay there, stunned and witless. "Well?"

Luna looked up, and then scrambled to her feet, stumbling on the loose ground. "Get away from me!" she cried, backing up. "I d-didn't do anything, honest!"

Kerry-Ann sighed. "Look, I _understand_ that now. You're in the clear, kid; Alma explained everything. Stop being such a frightened little cub, would you?"

"You hit me!" Luna snapped indignantly. "You looked like you'd beat the crap out of me!"

"I've had to do it before," said Kerry-Ann, shrugging. "Not even kids as good as you seem innocent at first. Alma's too sick to protect herself."

Luna said not a word.

"Look, if you need a place to stay, I'll even let you have my bed. I'm grateful for what you did for Alma — "

"You should be! You went and left without a word or any food!"

"…I'm grateful for what you did for Alma, and I'm sorry for leaving. We ran out of food and I had to bargain around for some stuff. I haven't eaten all day, so…you want some supper?"

The softness in that final sentence was…shocking. From hard and confrontational Kerry-Ann had gone, her voice becoming tender and coaxing. In a gesture of peace, Kerry-Ann raised her hands and backed up, a universal sign that she was respecting Luna's space. Luna stared at Kerry-Ann, but did nothing and said nothing. Both refused to break eye contact, searching for the trust in each other's faces.

"I think you know your way back, even in the dark. Don't get hurt out here now, kid; whatever you do, stay safe and warm."

With that, Kerry-Ann backed up three paces, faced away from Luna and walked back to the inn. Luna did nothing but watch as Kerry-Ann retreated to the darkness, having nothing more to say. Only when the other woman's silhouette was about to completely vanish did Luna move to go after her.

* * *

><p>Kerry-Ann didn't see much of the girl on her way back. It was obvious, however, that the girl was trailing her, perhaps curious or perhaps hungry. There was always the more sinister option of the girl wanting to jump and slit her throat; for Alma's sake, Kerry-Ann held back on that thought. Filling her head with those ideas, however justified she felt they were, was how she had driven off the girl in the first place. She didn't deserve it, really; Alma had been terribly vulnerable, and according to her, the girl had stayed by her side vigilantly.<p>

The pair continued to walk, one always following the other, all the way back to the inn. Kerry-Ann was not immediately followed in; rather, the cub decided she'd wait for the woman to enter Alma's room alone. Only five minutes later did that shy, almost childish knock come, and Kerry-Ann opened the door, cocking an eyebrow. The kid looked more and more like some sort of sad puppy instead of a human, just _barely_ looking up with fearful but hopeful eyes. Twiddling her fingers and thumbs, the child… _No, adolescent, she's gotta be almost sixteen, _Kerry-Ann corrected herself; the _adolescent _spoke up quietly.

"…Do you have any food?"

"Yep," replied Kerry-Ann without missing a beat. "Come on in. It's mostly crackers and a jar of peanut-butter, but that's better than fresh rat, right?"

Luna nodded quickly, stepping inside the room hastily. Almost immediately her eyes spotted the smallest jar of peanut-butter she had ever seen, and beside it, several packages of crackers. Looking up at Kerry-Ann, she waited, hesitant, but then almost _lunged _at the food when given a nod. Kerry-Ann snorted, amused by the antics of the supposed teenager, the girl's hunger almost like a starving rat's as she tore into the first package. Alma stirred slightly, mumbling at the noise, but was as still and quiet as before after a moment.

After giving the girl a few minutes to stuff her face, Kerry-Ann asked, "What's your name, kid? Can't keep calling you 'kid' over and over again."

Luna paused in stuffing her face, swallowing. "…Luna."

"Luna." _Just like the moon. _Kerry-Ann smiled — it was ever so slight, but it was a smile — at Luna. "That's a pretty name. I like it."

* * *

><p><em>End <strong>Chapter Seven:<strong> Human Connection_

* * *

><p>The World of Darkness<em> copyright White Wolf Publishing<em>

_Luna Hamilton, Dragon and other OC characters copyright me_


	9. Chapter Eight: Wake Up

Her fingers reflexively went to the Bowie knife at her hip, Luna's half-awake brain not recognizing Dragon's hot, smelly breath at first. She grunted awake, eyes flickering open to see fangs and a tongue washing over her. Making a small sound of surprise, she jolted awake, her stiff body protesting at the sudden rush to get moving. As soon as she saw it was Dragon, however, she pushed the dog away with a weary hand. In her little cave in the rubble, she could see that the sky had lightened — it was day again. With a groan, she slowly pushed herself up off the slab of stone that had been her bed, wincing and clutching at her stomach. For the past…month, she reckoned, there had been a steadily increasing pain in her belly, whereas before, mild, ignorable discomfort.

She found her mind drifting back to the past more and more often. Luna figured it was because, ever since she had left that little port settlement, she hadn't had any decent human interaction. She was either bartering, dodging, ignoring or fighting with someone, and none had apologized for their actions. Kerry-Ann, as brusque as she had been, had given Luna as much food as she could, and the two had chatted while Alma slept. The conversation turned to origins, and Luna mentioned she was a military brat, though she said little else. Kerry-Ann, on the other hand, had lived in a settlement that Alma delivered goods to as some sort of trader; her friend had been badly injured on the job.

Of course, Luna already knew all of that, but she wasn't about to let such a startling fact slip out. The weird dreams, seeing people in memories not her own, the flashes of people mulling about dead cities before…disappearing — all of it was incredibly unsettling. Therefore, Luna had kept quiet, and for her efforts, she received nourishment, shelter, and a weapon to defend herself with. The Bowie knife had not been the only one Kerry-Ann carried on her person; according to the older woman, she carried at least _five others _with her at all times._ Where_ in the world had she kept them hidden? Luna never found out, and frankly she didn't know if she wanted to.

"_Take good care of your blade, Luna. It'll be your best friend and you're its. Someday, it'll probably save your life."_

Kerry-Ann wouldn't know how honest her words had been. Then again, she probably did; not only was she one of the toughest people Luna had ever met, she was also frighteningly prepared. Luna didn't know many other people who could harvest the leather from boots to eat, as long as it wasn't synthetic leather; her stomach churned at the thought. She rubbed her stomach absent-mindedly, bloated and sore, and Dragon nuzzled with concern. Luna scratched him behind the ears, and then hefted herself to her feet with the help of Dragon's shoulders. The skinny dog nearly was pushed to the ground, but he held steady and kept his mistress's balance for her.

Together, the pair of dog and master crawled out of the hiding place, yet another cold wind tousling hair and fur as they emerged. In the distance were barren train tracks, snowed over and strewn with the odd boxcar and rubble. Luna tended to avoid them now, feeling a creeping up her arms, back and neck whenever she got close. Though she still remembered little of her strange dream on the train, as time went by, she pieced some things together. The piercing eyes of the wolf, and his greying and scarred body, stood out in her mind the most; something about him hadn't been right. It was like she had been talking to her own shadow, and that he had been an entity not really there, yet….

"_Do you want to see what __**really**__ happened?"_

Her entire body suddenly went from cold to hot, and she clutched at herself. Dragon snapped his head over to look at her, whining and poking at her leg with his muzzle. Luna moved away from him, teeth chattering as the sensation left and the chill returned. In the far back of her mind, she felt a slight pounding, but pushed it away in order to focus better. Dragon persisted on trying to get her attention, and it was only when he began grabbing her coat's edge with his mouth did she look down at him. To soothe his fears, she gave him a friendly pat, rubbing under his chin next and making him groan.

"Good boy, Dragon," she said softly, heard only by him over the call of the wind. It felt so long ago that the two had found each other, even if it probably had been just a year or such. Time was impossible to tell, at times; so used to keeping time with the sun, people often forgot, only marking the borders of day and night. It was a sad memory to recall, though, as Dragon had been even thinner than now when she found him….

The dog whined, pushing at his mistress's hand once more; her attention had drifted from him again.

* * *

><p><em>End of <em>_**Chapter Eight: **__Wake Up_

_TO BE CONTINUED_

* * *

><p>The World of Darkness<em> copyright White Wolf Publishing<em>

_Luna Hamilton, Dragon and other OC characters copyright me_


	10. Chapter Nine: A Thin Little Puppy

The settlement appeared to be completely devoid of life. The pawprints of wild dogs could be seen here and there, and the odd pair of eyes flashed in the shadows, but the former town had fallen to pieces. Unlike those towns closer to the blast zones, most buildings were still intact, with rotting garbage and old furniture a symbol of life before the End. Many windows were broken, and there was a lack of corpses on the ground, most bodies frozen and curled up in makeshift dens. Rats gnawed on the remains, the shadows of left-behind goods leering out from the abandoned homes, tempting for those brave enough to go inside.

Yet, to Luna's mix of fear and fascination, there were still signs of life. In a window, a candle was burning, hastily blown out as soon as Luna passed by. A not-as-rigid corpse, curled up against a tipped chair's cushion, twitched a little more convincingly than if a rat was scuttling through its arm. Luna moved hastily, eyes giving these signs of life the barest of glances before continuing forward; it wasn't safe in the open. She had a better chance surviving if dealing with animals instead of her fellow man; animals might have had teeth and claws, but humans had those, weapons _and _intelligence. Fictitious or not, she remembered stories during her travels with Jim and Little Stella of cannibals leaving traps for unwary travellers.

God, it was so cold out, even more than usual. Was winter coming, if even such a season existed anymore? It did nothing but snow anymore, white powder stacked like icy flour upon everything, swept up by the wind like dust. Cold, winter, snow, the wind — featured weather of a featureless void, and something, despite being used to it, which got to Luna. Somewhere, deep in the recesses of her brain, she remembered flowers, warmth, laughter and summer; spring rains and splashing in puddles, the melting of the snows and the rebirth of the land; beautiful leaves dancing on the not-so-hated wind, red and orange and yellow as flames. The memories were faint, but she could grasp at them, clutch their tendrils tightly and try to remember how warm it used to be, beating back the chill from her arms, legs and face. She took a sharp intake of breath, letting out a plume of steam.

_"…Where are you going?"_

She stopped, turning towards the whisper with a pivot. She stared at nothing but dead and decaying houses, lined up like soldiers along the former road behind her. It then occurred to Luna that, despite the signs of life, the road didn't look as if it was often travelled.

_"Whereareyougoing where are yougoing whereare you going whereareyougoinggoing…going…going…where are you going —"_

She suddenly clutched at her head, feeling a deep, sharp pain seeping up from the back of her brain.

"— _Where are you going?"_

Faces. A sea of faces. Some were burnt, some were gaunt, some were skulls, and some were rotting.

_"where are you going"_

It felt like somebody's fingernails had written the words onto the inside of her forehead. Something was scraping at the innards of her brain, chittering like a horde of locusts and demanding to get out.

_"WHERE ARE YOU GOING"_

They were carving it into her skull with their little mouth-parts. There was no sense of an indoor voice, just a maddening, persistent drone.

_"WHERE are YOU going?"_

"N…nowhere…" began Luna, swaying as she tried to stand upright.

_"Where ARE you GOING?"_

"I'm…I'm not sure…" she answered, her hands rising to clutch at her skull. "Stop it…."

_"Where are you going — WHERE ARE YOU GOING? WHERE are you going — where are YOU going?"_

"St-stop…."

_"WHERE ARE YOU GOING_

_YOU ARE GOING __**nowhere**__"_

Luna cried out as a wave of nausea washed over her. Pestilence, death, coughing, blood splatter — _Beware the rats! _She doubled over, her stomach giving a lurch as she coughed up what was barely in there. The vile taste of bile was drowned out by a coppery sensation; a metallic smell reached up through her nose and clawing at her olfactory sensors like the scent had talons. She blinked, the beige-yellow mess in front of her turning orange, then pinkish…. Then it was orange again, before finally shifting to a deep, vibrant red.

_"Beware the rats, for they are many."_

The sudden realization she was vomiting blood, as well as what looked like _her own face_ — only covered in sores and what appeared to be half-gnawed off — made Luna shriek and jump backwards. As she toppled over into the snow, the blood appeared as normal puke once again, and the smell cut through the air like a knife. Gasping for air, shaking with fright, Luna scrambled backwards and hurried to her feet as fast as she could. In all her terror, however, she did not notice the thick, twisted lump just a few feet away, and proceeded to trip over it —

Something delicate and clawed brushed against her leg as she hit the ground. Pulling herself up onto her hands and knees, she turned around and screamed. There, staring at her was the skeletal, half-_eaten _face of a person, the body so thoroughly gnawed on, some fingers were just bones and she could see the layers of skin. That wasn't the worst part, however; the worst part was that, but a split second later, a rat scurried out of an empty eye socket and dashed away in the snow.

If she hadn't been so frightened out of her wits, Luna would have puked again. Instead, there was a sudden, unpleasant wetness, spreading down between her legs as urine's unpleasant odour graced her nose. Like a deer at a gunshot, she took off, not looking back as a gentle snowfall came to re-bury the corpse.

* * *

><p>The wall against her back gave little comfort to where she sat. The roof above her had a gaping maw of a hole, letting little flakes of snow drift in; the rest looked like it was shredded by machine gun fire. The exhaustion was overwhelming, eclipsing the dull pain in her gut from earlier. Yet, she couldn't help but continue to rub at her stomach, which groaned and strained like a soggy, living tumour; she needed food. A human could survive four weeks without food, but she only had so much energy to fight fatigue and cold. Luna glanced around, mulling over whether or not she could catch another rat to dig into. She snorted, giving a weak smile, rubbing the side of her panging head absent-mindedly.<p>

_Some of these things are the size of gophers. I'd probably be fed for a week._

She laughed, the sound bitter and hollow, yet tireless. Oh _man_, had that been a hallucination; her head really must have been messed up from not eating. Coughing up blood? Gnawed face? Rats out of the eyes? How original. _How very fucking original. _Now that she thought about it, Luna hadn't slept well either. Her mouth opened wide to yawn, and though she might have stifled it to keep from feeling sleepy, she let it go. Every inch of her, from her bones down to the hairs on her skin, felt as weighted as an overloaded sponge.

_Maybe a little sleep wouldn't be so bad,_ Luna thought, letting her head loll to the side. She slid down the wall, the sensation of falling blending into a feather-light softness that tickled against her body and mind. It felt like she was a lead weight dropped into a pond, feeling as if her body had given a final _thump _against a mattress. The cold wind was a whisper, and between that instance of awake and asleep, it brushed against her like her mother's fingers.

It was impossible to feel so warm.

* * *

><p><em>A woman sat weeping, chained and shackled. Blood splattered the side of her neck and shoulder; blonde hair ragged and tangled, her blue eyes were bloodshot and distant. Bruises covered her — a struggle had taken place. She had sat against the wall to collect her thoughts.<em>

_A man was sick, poisoned by bad drinking water. He lay slumped against the wall, chest heaving, with his own vomit on his chest and around his head in a pool. He knew whiskey was bad on his stomach in his current state, but he was dying; wasn't it worth going out with the only thing he had left in the world?_

_Two people were fighting over a piece of found food. They beat each other senseless, bruises all over each other, skeletons with skin stretched over them. They took their fight out of the building after one of them ripped out the other's eye, and the other stabbed the eye-ripper with a broken glass shard._

_"What about the dogs, Mom?"_

_"They'll be fine, honey… Just keep walking. Dad will take care of them, I promise you."_

_"But he's sick too!"_

_"He can still walk. He just needs to…to lie down…"_

The sound of retching startled Luna awake, and she flew up from where she laid on the debris-ridden ground. Looking around fearfully, her eyes stung at the lightness around her, and her heart was playing the drums. She realized she had slept an entire night out in the open, with little to no shelter against the beasts that lurked. Her hands frantically went to her neck, her stomach, her sides and her hips; nothing seemed out of place, wrong or violated. She felt her stomach lurch in nervousness, and then, a sharp, lancing pain, as if she had been stabbed. Luna cried out, bringing her legs up as she curled, teeth gritted as she nearly toppled over again. Opening her jacket, she felt around her torso, looking for any sign of a knife wound.

Nothing. It must have been one of the regular pains she was getting, only worse. She leaned back against the wall, trying to get her breathing and heart rate under control as the ache turned burning. God, what was wrong with her? It didn't feel like the stomach flu — the time frame was different, lasting over the last couple of months with a tendency to wax and wane. _Hunger_, she told herself, _it's just hunger. Stop being paranoid._

_"Whrrrriiiiine."_

Luna froze. Every inch of her was covered in pin-pricks, muscles rigid, the pain forgot. She could feel adrenaline kicking in as her eyes darted left and right, fight-or-flight _screaming_ at her to do something. Her fingers twitched, one hand slowly reaching out to find some sort of makeshift weapon. Her ears were perked for another instance of the sound, which her thoughts raced past too fast to identify.

It came again to her, a few minutes later: "_Whhhhhrine._" Her mind quickly sifted through the possibilities — _wild child, sick person, animal…dog? _It sounded nearby, right within throwing distance of a stone. Slowly making her way up, the earlier pain now definitely gone, Luna pressed against the wall. She slid carefully, squeezing her bladder shut so that the tightened muscles softened her steps. Her hands felt along the wall, and when she came to the ragged right edge, she peeked around. There didn't appear to be anything — at first.

Then, out of the corner of her eye, past a rubble-strewn chain fence, there was movement. A small, black blur and a twitch, disturbing piled snow. A swishing motion revealed the tail of something, and Luna slowly stepped forward, hand on her Bowie knife. She was ready to lunge, to kill if need be, as she stepped over the icy debris. She leaned forward, peering through the links as she slowly pulled out her knife.

Her heart went from pumping to falling in an instant. Pained amber eyes stared into her own, so similar in colour. They were sunken into a furred face, with black and white markings along a scraggly, canine muzzle. Lying across the ground was the sickly form of a starving dog, and peering over it, there were several other bodies as well. Unlike the one that had whined, they did not move, and Luna guessed they were dead. She slowly shifted her gaze back down to the still-alive animal.

"Hey buddy," said Luna, kneeling and reaching out. The dog's tag wagged faster, sending more snow flying and drawing its own little angel into the powder. "Hey sweetie. How ya doing?"

The dog let out another whine in return. Luna found herself at a crossroads; she did not have enough to feed the dog, and being hungry herself, it would be easy to kill it and cook it for a meal. On the other hand, her humanity wasn't far gone enough yet that she was about to eat someone's _pet_. Even worse was the thought of letting it starve to death; who knew how long it had been suffering? Maybe it was kinder to put it out of its misery, but then again…

She stood up and looked around, though didn't consider herself stupid enough to call out. The cage was connected to a house, and the back of the cage was actually part of a fence that wound around a former yard. For some reason, all of it seemed familiar.

"Wait here."

The dog whimpered as Luna walked away, pleading in its own way for her to stay with it. Luna's heart broke at the sound, but she knew she wasn't going to leave the poor creature. She was better than that, no matter how impractical an idea it might have been.

* * *

><p>The house was unlocked, and by the looks of it, it had been for some time. There was damage to padlocked cupboards and walls caused by human tools, and furniture kicked over and smashed; looters had been through there. Though there were no signs of recent activity, Luna shuddered at the thought of someone walking in on her. Deciding to be as quick as possible, she began to search around for some sort of cutting tool. Better yet, if she could find some sort of lockpick for the padlocks still left on the dog's cage….<p>

She found nothing in the kitchen, or the living room, or the bathroom on the first floor. A rat was kind enough to jump out of the toilet and make her jump a foot in the air, but that was it. Slowly heading upstairs, the stairs creaking with age and neglect, Luna was worried she might fall through. Thankfully she made it to the top, although the fourth step up nearly gave when she walked on. Sneaking over to the first door, she thought she smelt something pungent, and when she quietly opened the door, she staggered back.

Billowing out from the room was the smell of death. On the bed was a blackened corpse, stiff and rotting, laying beneath equally rotten covers. There were books scattered around, gnawed on and covered in rat droppings, and a pair of the rodents scurried out by Luna's feet. An old, unworking TV sat on a small table; ragged, gossamer curtains letting in the faintest light possible. Feeling ready to retch, Luna slowly closed the door again, fighting back a cough. No matter how badly she needed something like a bobby pin, she was _not _about to go into someone's vermin-infested tomb. The dead were the dead, and even if she had looted from bodies before, she didn't want more little "friends" popping out if she pulled back the covers.

The next room was a guest room, and Luna decided to take a somewhat mildew-y blanket, finding that it was in mostly good condition. Searching a set of drawers in the room revealed an old bag of hairpins, along with a hairbrush and a pair of restaurant chopsticks. Luna stuck them all in her pockets, wondering where the chopsticks might have come from, and moved onto the next room. That had been a child's room, filled with old plush toys, books and DVDs, and Luna wondered why it seemed mostly untouched. That and the guest room too — had the looters feared coming up the stairs because of —

_"Mommy, I don't want to leave! I DON'T WANT TO!"_

The sound in her head was horrendous. The image of a crying, black-haired girl slammed into her mind, covered in bruises and white as a sheet. In the bedroom of the dead body's, a man sat hacking, mouth covered in red as his family wept and tried to comfort him. They were sick, they were scared, they needed to get help and they couldn't just _leave _him there —

She had to get out. She ran out of the room like there was a monster on her heals, stealth and silence be damned. Running down the stairs, she leapt before the fourth stair from the bottom, landing hard and scraping her hands and knees. The sandpapery bite of the rough ground into her flesh wasn't enough to stop her, though, and she took off through the door she had come through. She didn't even bother closing it, leaving it wide open for whoever was brave enough to venture back in.

* * *

><p>"Come on…"<p>

_Click click click._

"Come on…"

_Click…click click! _

"Just a little more…just a little more…aha!"

With a final, "_Click_!" the padlock to the cage was finally open. Pulling the door to the cage open, the bottom scraping into the ground, Luna barely managed to get it open. She had to suck in to squeeze through, kicking the entryway open to better fit the dog afterwards. Walking over to the helpless animal, she took the blanket and gently wrapped it around him. He was so light, Luna thought she might cry; she had tried lifting up dogs before, and he was far too underweight. Looking around, he must have survived by eating snow, and even then he could only keep it up for so long. She didn't check the other dogs to see if he had gone after them in his hunger.

Managing to push herself through, Luna carried out her newfound friend as quietly as she could. Despite being the canine equivalent of a feather, she was still bogged down by them, dragging her feet as she tried to pull up her arms. Down a street she turned, nearly tripping, disappearing into an alley to find better shelter. As she walked farther and farther away, she would not hear the distant footsteps of strangers, who stared at the open doorways she had left with hungry, hopeful eyes.

"You think there's something inside?" asked a short woman, looking up in a jerk to the bony leader of her group.

"Definitely," said the bony leader, pointing a spidery finger at Luna's footprints. "Look, fresh tracks."

With that, the group dispersed in a flurry, running into the house and the backyard without abandon. Upon seeing the open dog kennel and the bodies of the animals within, several members of the group cried out in joy, thankful at finally having found some food.

* * *

><p><em>End <em>_**Chapter Nine: **__A Thin Little Puppy_

_TO BE CONTINUED_

* * *

><p>The World of Darkness<em> copyright White Wolf Publishing<em>

_Text copyright me_


	11. Chapter Ten: Beastie

The morning rat wasn't staying down.

Doubled over on her knees, Luna had spent the last fifteen minutes emptying the contents of her stomach onto the ground. Dragon, watching from a short distance away, whimpered at his master. Luna was breathing heavily, her stomach rolling almost constantly now. Her periods had stopped entirely, and shortly after that, the lancing pains in her groin had started. She could barely walk some days, and eating and drinking was a chore, as sheer force of will was necessary in not throwing everything back up.

No, she was_ not_ pregnant. She had checked in a panic, and there were no signs of anyone having their way with her. She was a smart enough teenager not to sleep around, as she couldn't raise a baby in a frozen wasteland, and neither did she want one. She couldn't be dying, either; she had kept herself alive so far, using her wits and survival knowledge taught by Jim. All of her water was boiled and purified, and she traded for fresh food whenever she could. Shelter was easily found or made, no matter how full of holes the structure might be, and she kept clear of strangers. Radiation poisoning was a possibility, but wouldn't her hair being falling out as well?

"The signs of radiation poisoning and panic are supposed to be the same," someone once it a case of hypchondria brought on by paranoid thoughts? Maybe. Then again, perhaps it was a side-effect of starvation she had never heard of, or just a really persistent bug. If that was the case, why wasn't she getting her monthlies, then? And why, too, had going to the bathroom become a strain, as if inflicted with ever-constant constipation?

Luna groaned, slowly moving back into a sitting position. Her head swam, her eyes wet with tears from the strain of vomiting. She made a choking noise, tipping over on her back like a cheap lamp; the lancing pains started again, and Luna's breathing was heavy with exhaustion. Dragon walked over to his mistress, nuzzling her cheek as he let out a low, long whine. One hand lifted weakly to scratch him under the chin.

"It's okay, buddy..." Luna mumbled, her fingers moving to the dog's ears. He leaned into her touch, wagging his tail slowly. "S'okay..."

Dragon's ears flattened, his tongue giving the teenager a few, reassuring licks. Luna smiled tiredly, and with some effort, pushed herself up off of the ground. Her knees went weak, a particularly jabbing ache nearly bringing her down, but she managed to stagger back to her current shelter. The old, cardboard box she slept in had been lined with scraps of styrofoam; the building nearby must have been some sort of warehouse for the latter. Nestled into a little "cave" made by a mattress leaning against a wall, Luna winced at having to squeeze in to not knock said mattress over. Dragon followed her diligently, his body heat most useful; the presence of two bodies in the shelter made it feel like room temperature in a warm house. It didn't take long before Luna drifted off into slumber, even with the sharp sensations that plagued her lower abdomen.

* * *

><p>Some'un was <em>new <em>in the area. She could see it, hear it, with snow all moved off things and new marks e'eryway. Tracks, person and doggy, too bigger than lil' feet — a _biggun_ was near. Ohhh, the bigguns didn't _like_ her part of the broken-down town, oh no they didn't! Was how she knew that the biggun was new. The little'un (which she really wasn't) licked her lips — dogs were 'sposed to feed you lots if you could catch 'em.

She knelt, her hunting stick sharp, always looking. Her stick was broken, metal, maybe a small pipe some-once, but now it was hers and _sharp_. Perfect for scaring bigguns so she could takes 'em things; she prowled like a kitty-cat now, she felt so much like'un. Her body was springy — always so springy — and her eyes had a hungry light. She was grinning wide with happy greed, and she had to stop herself from giggling at finding at the biggun. The others would eat long with yummy doggy, their bellies full and round, and the little'uns would stop crying so much for food. She _hated_ when the little'uns cried, even if the older'uns called her a little'un; when they cried, they brought baddies at night to 'em. Baddies with sharp claws and scary teeth, no less, and who really liked the taste of kids!

That so-called "little'un" would show 'em all. She'd scare that biggun away and takes that doggy as her prize, or she'd beat the biggun's head in with a rock — or better yet, stick 'em with her spear — before the biggun even knew that hit 'em. It wouldn't be long 'fore she found dinner and the biggun person, she knew it!

* * *

><p>Despite being curled up in a ball, Dragon was not at rest. His nose and ears constantly were twitching, and at a moment's notice, he could spring into a whirl of growls and snapping teeth. The squeaks of rats, their pattering little feet too quiet for any human to hear, tempted him; his legs were getting stiff, and he longed to run around to get the blood flowing. His mistress, however, was in no shape to be chasing him around, sleeping even now in a haze of unrelenting pain. Something was off about her scent, a sick, unhealthy odour only he could detect wafting from her lower abdomen, reeking of slow and consuming relentlessness. It was as if the healthy flesh was somehow withering inside her, eaten away by what he could only guess was little food. The dog found himself wracked with doubt; had he not been a good hunting hound? Had the quarry he killed at her command, which he pursued so relentlessly until it was too tired to run any further, not been enough to sustain her? True, it appeared as if the unending winter had gnawed at both of them, but she was finding it hard to eat. Everything he brought her ended up on the ground, coughed back up like a bad hairball.<p>

Dragon sighed. His mind kept wandering back, in these uncertain times, to when his former masters became sick. There had been a little girl, far more energetic than Luna, and a mother and a father, all of whom treated Dragon well. They had, despite the endless winter, kept Dragon's mother alive with a diet of rats and scraps; in return, she hunted for them and pulled along a small sleigh. He could still remember watching as the beautiful, powerful bitch, a purebred husky of black and white, loyally followed the father out into the rubble beyond; her children guarded the house via their kennel. There had been five of them, all varying degrees of black and white, with orange and blue eyes of all kinds. They had been happy, up until that one day the father was gone for a few days, and when he came back —

There was a rustle of cloth, not from behind him where Luna lay. The crossbreed's head perked up, eyes alert, ears tuning in to the most sensitive of sounds. Though he couldn't see much for the trash bags, he heard the whisper of a cold breeze, and the breath of a smaller, younger human; the smell of sweat and an unwashed body had become ranker with adrenaline. His upper lip curled, and he let out a long, low growl. Luna stirred behind him, weakly lifting her head.

"Dr...Dragon? Whatsa matter, boy...?"

The ever-so-light footfalls of the nearby intruder stopped where they were. Dragon slowly rose into a sitting position, the hairs on his hackles and back rising.

* * *

><p>The doggy was close, so very close. Doggy had gone and growled at her, and she heard a sad voice, a sleepy voice. It didn't sound like a biggun voice, though; more like an older'un's. Maybe it was just a big-footed older'un who was with the doggy? Maybe, yes, maybe so. Getting the doggy was what she wanted, so she'd get 'em's doggy or the older'un would givvit! If the older'un didn't givvit, then she'd stick the older'un in the belly, quick and easy!<p>

She wanted to let the doggy come out. If the doggy came out, then the older'un might not come out, be too scared. She was scarier than an older'un, scarier than a baddie, a... A... A beastie! Yess'um, a beastie, that's what she was! And like beasties, she got'em, she got her food any nobody'un would stop her! Not an older'un, not the doggy, not no one; in fact, maybe she could make it come out better...

She took her stick, her pipe, and hit it against a bag. _Rustle! _went the bag, all loud-like and sharp, a sound like a hunting stick's end. "Bark! Bark!" went the doggy, angry; she knew where it was, she hearded it. _Rustle! _went the bag again as she hit it again, and she giggled, oh yes she giggled loud.

* * *

><p>His hackles rose higher at the insane giggling. There was a human out there, no doubt, smelling of youth, femininity and body odour. It was a smell eerily similar to Luna's, though distinct, as all individual human scents were. Unnerved and confused at the same time, he made a low, uncomfortable sound, something between a growl and a whine in the back of his throat. He backed up, trying to keep more of Luna hidden where she lay, sensing the worry and confusion in Luna's unseen stare.<p>

"Dragon?"

The dog edged backwards again, his jaws parting slightly in a snarl. Something rustled and crackled loudly in front of dog and master, and moments later, a small, black bag came flying, the squeal of disturbed rats drowned out by Dragon's furious barking. Luna yelped and covered her head, the trash hitting Dragon on the top of his shoulders; he yelped, but then lunged forward, standing on his back legs and planting his front paws on the trash heap.

* * *

><p>Her doggy was out. She had scared him bad and he was out. "BARK BARK BARK!" went the dog, flashing those white ugly teeth, those <em>teeth<em>. She'd get 'em, she was not scared, she never be! Doggy wasn't as bad as a beastie, doggy was _stupid_!

She tooked her hunting stick, put it nice and high. Licked her lips, she did, all nice and sharp, and looked at the throat. One poke, one stick, and bye-bye doggy — then _food_! Yummy, yummy food...and no older'uns being _bossy_. Her kill, her food, no givvit! **_Hers!_**

"What's going on out there?"

She froze.

* * *

><p>Luna had not seen a feral youth since leaving Jim. Maybe the odd, childish shadow that betrayed their presence, or an impish giggle in the night, but never as close as she was now. Dragon was glaring and baring daggers at the intruding child, who was backing up, a broken metal pipe in her hands. A mop of shaggy hair — brownish, down to her waist and ridden with filth and tangles — hid wolfish eyes that peered through with a primitive gleam. The young girl's posture was hunched, careful, as if she were expecting any sudden moves to come her way; she moved like a cat out of range. Dragon looked ready to spring at the little monster, who, borderline thin and clad in the most tattered of winter-wear, barely looked innocent at all.<p>

That was one time Luna would justify why Jim had pointed a gun at a child.

"We've got no food!" snapped Luna, waving away the girl. She flinched, bendng over slightly at the jabbing pain in her gut. Managing to stand up slightly, she continued with, "Y-you've got n-no business here! Go! Shoo! Move on!"

The feral didn't waver. Instead, she took another step back, but then lifted one hand. Her stance was sturdy, her eyes locked on Dragon as she pulled back her spear. With a deft throw, the metal projectile hurtled towards Dragon, Luna _just _pulling him out of the way in time as he barked and snapped savagely.

* * *

><p><em>No! <em>She had missed! She had missed the doggy, and her hunting stick was stuck! Stupid biggun had grabbed the doggy, but Enid would take it back, she'd take it back, she _would_!

Quick-sharp, she jumped, ran, yells loud. Her nails, like beastie-claws, grabbed at fur, quick-sharp, and she bit'em! Doggy yelped as her teeths, her beastie-fangs bit'em, and snarled loud. She held on, she not scared, ripped, shaked her jaws; doggy was angry, eyes buggy, all snappy-snappy-jaws-fangs-barkbark —

_CHOMP!_

He bit'er! He _bit'er_! She screamed, she screamed loud; big teeth in her side, sink 'tween bones, make lots of blood and hurt. Enid grab doggy by neck, grab and _choke it_; she hold on, she hold on tight, make him let go. Doggy jumped, dancing like silly girly, moved which-way and that and all growls as it did. She bite again and again, make teeth-marks, make it bleed, but it bite tighter. Harder. Shaking, tearing, ow, ow, ow, it hurt!

She not get anywhere with this. Doggy would kill her, make her food any which-way. She had to fight harder, be stronger — she let go of him and then lunge at his face, his eye —

_WHACK!_

* * *

><p>Adrenaline was coursing through her a mile a minute. The pain in her belly was still there, but barely noticeable as she held the broken pipe aloft. Luna stared, amber eyes wide, as the feral slumped to the ground. A large lump was forming over the back of her head, and though there was no blood on the pipe, Luna could tell it hurt. The girl was stunned, staring up blankly in shock, but then her face wrenched in pain as blood flew.<p>

Dragon had not stopped tearing into the girl, and as she slackened, he went mad with the taste of her blood in his mouth. The little girl _screamed _as his fangs ripped into her, shaking his head even more savagely then before. A substantial splatter was all over the ground beneath him, and for a moment, the child's light brown hair and eyes faded. There was the tear-filled blue and sunny yellow of Stella II, and it was her that was screeching, her being torn to pieces by an overprotective, angry dog. Luna's blood became an ice-ridden flow, raging through her with every panicked heartbeat, and her foot swung upwards.

**_"ENOUGH!"_**

Dragon yelped as the foot connected with the side of his jaw. He let go, releasing the feral and bolting a few feet away, cowed by the rage, the _volume _of Luna's voice. The young woman frantically pulled off her coat, the feral — no, just a little girl — writhing madly upon the ground. She swung at screeched hoarsely in broken English at Luna, demanding to be let go, to be spared; Luna pressed the coat as tightly as she could upon the wound. Into her arms she took the child, trying to prop her up to prevent shock. _Legs up, or head up?_ Luna thought, trying to remember which to use for injuries around the ribcage.

And all the while, as the girl kept fighting, her warm blood beginning to form spots on the outside of the coat, Luna wept. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." she whispered, over and over again, trying to calm the little one. Dragon remained where he was, ears and head down, tail between legs, whimpering.

* * *

><p><em>End <strong>Chapter Ten:<strong> Beastie_

_TO BE CONTINUED_

* * *

><p>The World of Darkness<em> copyright White Wolf Publishing<em>

_Text copyright me_

_The first eight chapters of _Regret, Desire, Hope: The Triangle Chronicles_ are now available as a PDF, for when you're on the go and/or want to read it offline. The link to download the book is on my FF page._


	12. Chapter Eleven: Dream

A thousand pleas of forgiveness could not soothe what Luna felt. Guilt and anger were in an endless collide, her emotions a raw tug-of-war as she bandaged up the feral. She cursed through gritted teeth, through the pain in her stomach, and Dragon kept cowering in the corner. The little girl was half-lifeless, listlessly whimpering as tears rolled down her face.

She had lost so much blood in the struggle. The feral had fought with tooth and nail, biting and scratching as best she could. Large, ugly bruises were forming on parts of Luna's hands and arms; she was lucky the filthy teeth hadn't broken through. Dragon had gone to town on the child, a significant gouge in her side that would probably need stitches. Only, Luna couldn't find any stitches in her inventory; had she dropped them? Used them up? Had them stolen? So much time had passed, most of it in a haze of pain from her stomach. It was only through sheer force of will that her ward was given first aid.

Tightening her jacket around the feral's wounded side, Luna shivered, crawling back towards Dragon. In the cramped cleft she'd found in a wall, they had stayed for hours as Luna worked furiously. With the little girl's breathing growing more shallow, Luna prayed she'd make the night. Wild child or not, Jim's words rang not in her mind; she'd take care of the little one, no matter what people said. Probably like her, the girl had no parents, forced to raise herself as a wild animal might to survive. It wasn't her fault she wasn't educated, or that such a savage lifestyle was the only thing she could afford.

Luna closed her eyes, breathing shakily, deeply. Now that her focus and adrenaline had worn off, the pains in her belly grew worse and worse. Face squeezing up in pain, the teenager clutched at her self, curling into a ball as she lay against Dragon. Was it just her, or did he seem thinner than usual? She could feel his ribs, multiple and firm against her cheek. The dog whined, licking at his mistress's face; Luna reached over and patted him on the head.

"'S'okay...'s'okay, Dragon..."

Her mind tried to drift elsewhere, but her hurt, and her equally sore thoughts, kept her awake. It was only until sheer exhaustion and strained pain tolerance took over did she black out.

* * *

><p><em>In the black, there was white.<em>

_In the white, there was form._

In the form, there was familiarity.

_She was standin' in the colds, standin' where her cave did be, all a little littl'un and sniffin' like 'un. She was all teary-teary and sadfaced, and she didn't wanna go back into that scary cave, 'cause that was where Momma was. Momma and the **beastie**, there was, and the monster had burst outta Momma and Momma had cried 'til no more. All lone, lone by herself, and she was gettin' rumblies in the belly and stuff. Momma wouldn't come out, 'cause the beastie had gots her, and now the little littl'un had to take care of lone self now. Her sides was hurty, hurty from all the cryin', and it was so cold._

_But she waited for Momma, just in case Momma was all right. Just in case it was a bad dream, and Momma was gonna be okay. Momma didn't come, though, so she stops waitin' and she goes, and walks off like that, 'cause Momma wasn't comin' out. Momma was gonna sleep now, and sleep forever, 'cause Mommas sometimes had to do that._

All she had to her name was a sharp stick and her wits. She was the untamed and unbound, who scurried between rocks and over rubble to find her next meal. Whatever still existed in the snows of endless winter was hers to hunt, to scavenge, to find. All else would be death, whether at her hands or the hands of others.

_We hunt and eats and you givvit what's ourses. Your hunting sticks ours, and your foods ours, and everythin' else givvit and ours. Yous gots nothin' to hideaway, because we finds all, we finds lot, and you givvit._

_Now here's where I be standing, because it be safe, and it bes mine. I have my stick, all sharp and nice-like, and theys gots nothin'. I been here a while, after lotsa walkin', because I didn't wanna stay around Momma. Momma is gone, 'cause the beastie gots her, and I don't want the beastie to gets me._

"What's the beastie?"

* * *

><p>Luna jerked awake. She flinched at a twinge in her stomach, hissing in pain as she slowly rose to a sitting position. Her eyes darted left, then right; feral was still there, Dragon was still there, they weren't outside... Had she been shorter? <em>No, just a dream. Just a dream. Go back to sleep. Go back to sleep.<em>

So that's what she did, turning over on her side and closing her eyes.

* * *

><p><em>A mother lay dying, her hand clapsed in her daughter's. Amber eyes dewy and wide, Luna leaned over the gasping woman's, whose sky-blue eyes glazed with fading. The poison from outside was eating away at her, slowly but surely, and these were her last days. Patchy bruises covered her, and there was blood trickling from the edge of her mouth. Jim stood in the corner, blue eyes stony, dark fringe obscuring his eyes like a curtain; Stella II curled in upon herself by Luna. All were unable to do more.<em>

That big, nasty, mean biggun. Biggun bitch, she was, with her bitch-doggy who was a bitch as well. Girl was a biggun too, no, an _older'un_; bigguns mean and nasty, evil evil evil... Enid try think-hard, but think-hard was _hard_. So sore and ouchie, from the bitch-doggy's bites... Had to get out, Enid had to get out! Get out, find new hunting stick, make it sharp and hurt her! Hurt the biggun, who Enid _thought _was a older'un, but not! Killy her dead, she would, _Just you wait!_

Enid writhed, trying to pull herself to her feet as Dragon stared —

_T__he winter had been cold for the both them, and they had wandered around until they were near-frozen. Luna remained alone, at least until Dragon; Enid had found other ferals. Children. Wild people. They were unkempt and sniffling, angry and hungry, suspicious and greedy; Enid hadn't been one of them. Not until she assimilated for survival's sake._

"Hush, little sunshine..."

She turned towards the biggun. The evil, nasty biggun who was wakin' up. The biggun who was _scarin' _Enid, and who was gonna hurt her, she knew it!

"You are my...sunshine...my only sunshine..."

Enid froze. _Sunshine?_

"Happy...when skies are grey..."

Where'd she know the song? _Who taught her the song?_

"My only sunshine...my only sunshine..."

She was awake, but she wasn't. Was she? Yes...she was awake! The biggun was awake! Awake, but not awake before...how did she know? How did she know the Sunshine Song?

_It was a stupid, little childhood song, but Luna knew it. It was special to the feral, like _The Mockingbird Song_ had been to Alma and Kerry-Ann — especially Kerry-Ann. And then there was a song, about an old king named Cole, and it had been special to Luna. Had she heard it before with her father? A distant relative? One of her father's friends?_

"Old King Cole was a merry old soul / and a merry old soul...was he, uh huh. He called...called for his bowl...and for his pipe..."

_Her mother's hand was in hers again, milky-white and covered in bruises. The skin felt scarred but smooth, not a single hair left on it, and still bearing a wedding ring. Luna placed another of her hands over it, slowly firming her grip. Her mother's fingers felt so weak, it was like they would melt out of Luna's grasp altogether. The woman was too far gone to acknowledge her own children, murmuring almost-silently at the ceiling above._

_All Stella Hamilton I wanted was her husband. All she could speak was his name._

* * *

><p>The next time Luna woke, it was after a long, dark stretch. The confusing perspectives were no more, but Luna had to look around again to make sure she was back. Back in her own body, in her own mind, in what was left of her...sanity, she'd call it? No, that was too melodramatic. <em>Recognition. <em>The pain was making things hard to understand, that was all, and maybe she had a fever. It would certainly explain the dreams, Luna mused; the girl put a hand to her forehead. Was that warmth she felt?

Once she was able to focus, the teen slowly stood. On shaking legs she staggered, one foot at a time, towards her feral ward. The child _appeared_ to sleep, but she could have always been playing possum. Falling to her knees, Luna began to look the girl over, blinking back an oncoming wave of dizziness.

The blood had stopped flowing, but Enid's body was pale and her breathing shallow. _(How do I know her name?) _A few experimental prods did not make her stir, not even when the tender bite wound was poked. Enid's pulse was still firm, but had slowed considerably while Luna was asleep. The teen kicked herself mentally; why hadn't she stayed awake? Didn't first response call for attending to the victim _at all times_? And it wasn't like _Dragon _was going to help any, being a dog and all...

Slowly, carefully, Luna scooped up her ward. The two couldn't stay in the shelter without Enid dying, Luna was sure. The snow had stopped falling, and it couldn't have been too deep, right? Everything kept getting packed down beneath, forming a firmer and firmer surface. Once the world thawed, flooding might be an issue — perhaps to the point of having to swim everywhere. _Swimming in flooded streets? Ha! More like an ice rink...I think. I don't know. What's an ice rink again?_

Lifting the child was harder than expected. As soon as Luna hefted, her stomach silently howled, and she almost dropped the feral. Dragon was staring at her, having not moved from where he lay. Part of him wanted to go over and support Luna, lick at her face and make sure she was okay; the other part, the dominant part, felt wary. The kick she had delivered was brutal, and by her fussing over the child, Dragon knew he'd done wrong. Would his mistress accept his help, or see it as another threat to the pup she now had?

But Luna persisted. Taking a weak breath, she slowly pulled Enid's body upwards, cradling it like a newborn babe. The girl was small, and light as a feather — young and underfed, most likely. Most ferals were, from what Jim told her, and why wouldn't they be? _"Yous gots nothin' to hideaway, because we finds all, we finds lot, and you givvit."_

Luna shook her head, only to nearly tip over and crumple against the small cavern's side. Catching herself, trying to keep her legs firm, she stiffly struggled towards the entrance. The air outside was like a blast to her sweating face, chilling her instantly and waking her up; Luna was grateful for that. Dragon padded after her, keeping a small distance; he still wasn't welcome.

* * *

><p><em>They all call her a little'un. She ain't a little'un, in her mind; she was an older'un. An older'un scary as a biggun. A biggun! And they still bugged her, and they still were mean, and she kicked 'em and bit 'em and chases 'em away. She was strong, and Momma be proud of her. Enid was sure...<em>

Wakey-time was odd. She was rockin', rockin' like Momma used t'rock, and off ground. She was all limp-like like a dead rabbit, and the biggun not know Enid wake up. Enid still hurty bad, but maybe she could get the jump on the biggun. Biggun sounded sick, and she walked odd; Enid could take her!

Biggun was slowin' down. Biggun was huffin' and puffin', like the big bad beastie from a somethin'-story. Enid was all tight-like, tight like rope, and she wait. She wait a good time, a long-good time, and made a fist. Biggun start to stumble up bad now, almost on knees.

Enid swung, yellin' loud. Biggun yelled too, droppin' Enid; it hurt. Hurt real bad, like bad beastie-doggy bit again. Enid roll an' kick, roll an' kick, drag self away, huff an' puff too. Both hurtin', hurtin' as snow fallin', Enid saw. Biggun held her belly, like she had a baby and was hurtin' for it, an' snow was fallin' faster and faster. She froze, eyes on the biggun, who was now on her back.

_Blood on the floor. Beastie comin' out, hurtin' her and Enid runnin', runnin' outside as she hear the cryin'. _

"What's going on over there?!"

Enid blinky at yell. She jus' see her Momma for a sec?

* * *

><p><em>End <strong>Chapter Eleven:<strong> Dream_

_TO BE CONTINUED_

* * *

><p>The World of Darkness<em> copyright White Wolf Publishing<em>

_Text copyright me_


	13. Chapter Twelve: Bodies

_The details, for a time, are sketchy. Neither Enid nor Luna Hamilton have much recollection of following events; both were too weak from illness and injury. Their accounts are fragmented, and the narrator has spent much time piecing them together. It was recently finished when a helpful soul filled in the gaps; he was a body-gatherer from a nearby hospital. Luna would meet him again, one day, though I doubt she recognized whom she addressed when she did._

_But that's too far ahead to cover now._

* * *

><p>Day after day, it was always the same. Get up, go outside and get a few buckets of snow; pour snow into pot, put pot over stove. Melt the water, use it to clean, use it to brush one's teeth, then get dressed and hand dirty clothes to the scrubber. Make sure there weren't holes in one's coat to let the cold in, and make sure that the cart was free of bodies.<p>

Once they were "on the road", so to speak, it became easier. The hospital meant that there were many who flocked to the area, a semi-functioning settlement centred around the place of healing. Most of the population was sickly, whether from bad living or radiation poisoning, and finding corpses wasn't hard. In fact, the number of people who requested cremation brought a pretty penny to the hospital; they'd cut up the body, take the necessary parts and burned the rest. Piled deep into the hand-made furnace, the stink of cooking flesh was enough to make one nauseous, the door to the "ash room" sealed tight.

It was an incredibly morbid life, but death was better than living, even in a wasteland. The sawbones provided, and they did the survivors a great service. Who else could treat the cancers that were despairingly common? Who else could give relief, even if it was an inch above the bare minimum? And who else could fix the feral children, who had no one else to care for them, or care about their booming population?

He almost tripped over a rotten corpse, half-buried in the snow. With a small jump, the lad's half-broken glasses nearly fell from his face, and he frowned as he leaned down. With a hint of disgust — the rats had chewed on this one — he hefted the body into the barrow. Cupping his hands to his mouth, he took a deep, icy breath.

"Found one!"

"Found another!" another gatherer called back. He emerged from an alley, dragging a round-bellied, recently-dead woman by her ankles. From the looks of it, she had either been pregnant or diseased — the former likelier than the latter. She landed in the barrow with a thump and a stiff bounce; the lad shook his head. His friend's face held the same sentiment.

"It's like we find the younger ones more and more," said the girl's gatherer. "Ferals must be getting picky."

"Not enough food," said the lad. "If they don't kick out the fat ones, they eat them. Damian's still getting over finding that half-eaten baby behind the hospital."

And so they continued, speaking in voices most casual, if not tinged with a bit of sadness. There were too many bodies for things to be hard; people died all the time. The cold was not merciful, and neither was the world. They had all done their grieving, sometimes for years, and those that didn't ended up dying sooner. Strength of will would weed out the suicidal, the sickly and the alone, and the world would keep turning as nothing happened. There was folly in not accepting one would be with the Earth again.

_Listen to me and my New Age shit, _thought the lad, yanking out a frozen boy from his rag-and-plank shelter. His foot had nearly been gnawed off, and only stayed on by an icy scrap of bone. _"Return to the Earth," he says. "Ashes to ashes," he goes. Why on Earth do I go on such Gat-damn tangents when I have to do this shit, instead of thinking about unicorns or fairies or that stupid pony craze? For Christ's sake, the number of grown men that have to rely on plastic, painted little horses in order to get through the day... Freaking hell, grow a pair of balls already! What —_

The sound of a cry reached him, followed by many giggles. The lad froze, slowly turning on his heel as he let go of the barrel. One hand went to his belt, where a heavy pistol sat in a thick, leather case. With a single motion, he pulled off the top and withdrew his gun. Slowly, he moved forward.

"...Littl'un girlsie..."

"Eh, she not movin'?"

"Pokey pokey pokedy..."

"Betcha we can eat'er, iffen thinkin'."

Huddled figures stood and squatted around something in the road. Tangled hair, long and snow-flecked, hid gaunt faces awash with hunger. One of them was poking their find with a stick, and the body collector raised his gun. He wouldn't care if they wanted the body, but every pound of flesh brought more and more rations to his plate.

_BANG!_

Squeals and shrieks of fright were followed by panicked flight. "AND STAY AWAY!" the collector bellowed, glaring at the retreating figures. He strode over to whatever they were investigating, looking left and right before kneeling. Crashes and skidding feet could be heard as the children fled; he'd have to let the sawbones know that they were acting up. It did their work no good if the ferals took everything they needed; the savages had no sense of limitation.

"Ah, hell."

Two girls, unconscious and unmoving. Both were brown-haired, old enough to be siblings; one was stocky and plump, the other bony and frail. Dried blood was found on closer inspection, and the smaller child had all the trademarks of a feral. Her clothes were too tattered, her body too scarred and frame too lean, to be just anyone. The lad sighed at his find.

_Damn children are turning on each other, now; other's probably a victim._

"Found another two! Ferals were trying to eat them!"

"Aw, hell," came a voice from around the corner. The others had become deathly silent at the crack of the gun; they couldn't afford to gain attention if numbers could be greater. Just because there was a single shot, it didn't mean there was only a single shooter. "Them again?"

"Yeah well, they're persistent," the lad said. "Here, you want to take one for yourself?"

He did not catch his friend's reply, as a small, terrified cry stretched out like a pitiful mewl. The lad looked down, just in time to see the fatter one shift, eyes blinking open. They were hazy with pain, and great with fright.

* * *

><p><em>End <strong>Chapter Twelve:<strong> Bodies_

_TO BE CONTINUED_

* * *

><p>The World of Darkness<em> copyright White Wolf Publishing<em>

_Text copyright me_


	14. Chapter Thirteen: We Leap Forward, Again

"Hey Luna?"

"Yeah?"

"What are you making?"

The night sang softly, the only sound made by the windy cold. Snowflakes fell delicately, landing in haphazard precision everywhere they could — in the windowsills, on the rooftops, upon her clothes, between the strands of Luna's disheveled hair. fingers, covered only by a thin layer of cloth glove, twisted and wove the strands of leather like she was making a plait. Hound-amber eyes focused intently on her work, barely registering the other, more youthful girl.

"It's a lanyard," Luna plainly, simply answered, voice as monotone as the droll of her teachers. "It's so I don't lose my stuff."

"Like what?" the girl said, leaning in closer to peer at Luna's workings. In return, the older leaned away from the younger, frowning a little.

"Just...stuff."

Luna tuned out again after the curt reply. The other girl — what was her name again..."Sophia", or something? — said something in vague disappointment, but Luna wasn't paying attention. Again, her own designs swallowed her world, unhinged like the jaws of a snake to fully and completely envelop her. Not even the bite of the cold fazed her, the sharp air refreshingly clear in her head and mind.

* * *

><p>How many months had it been?<p>

How long had it been since the hospital had taken her in, and the last she'd seen of that feral girl?

_Blood, sopping wet cloths full of red — **her **red, all her insides dripping, cutting up and served like at the dinner table —_

It was odd how she couldn't remember. A great fog sat and swirled inside her head, even as she stared (_unmedicated and unattended_) out the window. She kept wondering about the dog, too, that had used to follow her around. The one that had torn up the girl in the first place, and whom she couldn't remember being at the hospital. What had happened to him? Wasn't he _clingy_ because of how much she fed him?

_Not enough for her, she had to keep awake, had to tell them when and where __so they could give her more —_

Life was...nice. There still was snow and there still was cold, but there was less of it than she could remember. Maybe it was because she was somewhere that got hot food on a regular basis, and she was a good worker, and they took care of her. There were many children like her — taken in, sent to the Elmshouse, bought from markets desperate enough to sell them — so she couldn't say she was lonely. And she was healing, too, even though her belly still hurt

_And she would wake up screaming in the night, and she could still see the tearing and the bleeding, and everything was pouring all over and they had to hold her down and sew again_

Sometimes, when she needed privacy, she would sit on the roof of the Elmshouse — the girl had been into a small bedroom with eight other children, as they were so many kids and not enough places to put them all. One might think the supervisors would object to her adventures; they rarely caught her up there. They didn't always check the attics their aged building held, nor did they know about the many two-way closets that let people sneak from one way to the other. From the kitchen to the infirmary, to the library and even to the basement, Luna always found a way. She hadn't memorized them all yet, but she always found a way._  
><em>

_But she still couldn't find a way out of the not-hallways and the shadows, and how everything seemed to stack on top of each other — she would see her teachers when they were not, and hear the ringing trills of some strange bird, and how everything had been about taxes and paperwork and loans, and there was all this beeping and arguing, and coffee flowed like rainwater and there were whole lumps of sugar, which only could be thought of being like gold —_

But she'd gotten in trouble. One of the little girls — Sophia, she was sure of it — had kept following her up to the roof. Like Luna, they'd penned her up for most of the day, and there was little time away from prying eyes during work and free time. Luna hadn't objected to Sophia being on the roof, only being annoyed when the girl interrupted something being done. Reading and quiet projects were two things Sophia could interrupt

_And just like with the feral girl, there'd been screaming, and people had fussed, and Luna tried to see what was going on, but she was hurting so much and she couldn't tell if candles were imps and torches were giant flaming monsters, which made **no sense **at all until she thought about the brightness of the insides —_

Luna rubbed at her forehead. She didn't like thinking about what had happened to Sophia, or how her one escape was now blocked off. They had put a couple of guards on the roof, armed with cheap rifles to take advantage of their new "watchtower"; it justified them nearly breaking their necks. Several times, in fact, as ice had a bad habit of collecting on the roof, even though the Elmshouse could do something about it now. Didn't they want to prevent the kind of fall that had offed poor Sophia? Or were the guards they hired suddenly expendable?

The internal argument she launched herself into was interrupted — or rather, something was startling her from it — by hushed, excitable whispering. Turning away from the white-frosted window she'd temporarily lost her thoughts in, Luna watched as a few of the children rushed towards the library exit. Tilting her head like a confused pup, the girl slowly pushed her chair back, standing up with a wince. She walked-ran as fast as she could, a stiff limp turning every step into a waddle; the children mercifully stopped after rushing down a single hallway. Luna had to stand on her tiptoes to see over them, only for a burst of pain to rush through her abdomen and nearly topple her.

Annoyed, the girl gritted her teeth and pushed through the crowd. She came to stand at a window that, somehow, had not been covered in spiny hoarfrost. Peeking between the heads of a girl and a boy, she watched as a large, stumbling crowd hustled into a door into the infirmary. Muffled shouts could be heard from outside, and it didn't take long for Luna to spot the outlines of rifles and gun-belts. The girl's eyes widened.

_Why are we letting soldiers in?_

* * *

><p>Every open space in the ramshackle hospital was filled with moaning and wailing; anything else was occupied by casualties. Eyes were darting left and right, too many men and women holding their fingers close to their triggers. Those that screamed and foamed at the mouth were held down; some were long gone, eyes wild and snapping and snarling at the doctors. Some had only begun to lose themselves to the infection, moaning in agony as bright, bulbous lines of red surged from their wounds. Traces of greenish, pus-ridden foam still coated their wounds, the medical staff furiously trying to wash off what hadn't been absorbed into their flesh. The hired guns were still trying to process what had happened — it had been a simple investigation, a look into what was causing various trading parties to disappear in the woods.<p>

Then there had been the howling. _Then_ there had been the laughter. And then, surrounded by cacophony, every light went out — torches, candles, lanterns lit with precious kerosene. An older, portly soldier, grizzled and hardened from battles before and after the end, shakily took out a lighter. He fumbled for his last cigarette, desperately trying to get the flame to work; he hadn't touched it since it went out in the unnatural dark. It slipped out of his thick, shaking fingers before he could get a hold of himself; it spun as it fell, clattering to rest in a pool of fresh blood. He hadn't noticed the splatter so near to his boot, and neither had he seen where it came from.

There was no way in _Hell _he was going to pick up his light, and by extension, have a cigarette now. The hefty mercenary bent over a little, letting out a tense sigh before looking back at the wounded men.

"Fuck."

* * *

><p><em>End <strong>Chapter Thirteen: <strong>We Leap Forward, Again  
><em>

_TO BE CONTINUED_

* * *

><p><em>The World of Darkness<em>_ copyright White Wolf Publishing_

_Luna Hamilton, Dragon and other OC characters copyright me_


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